How much will Persistent Memory Options Cost in 2019?

I recently attended the Persistent Memory Summit 2018. 

It was an outstanding conference and I was able to learn a lot on what some options for persistent memory configurations will be in 2019 and beyond. Spoiler Alert: Optane DIMMS are involved in both cheapest and most expensive options

 I converted it to customer cost for Storage/Memory components in the system for some typical options including a medium SSD and big HDD

If you disagree, please tell me the correct answer (hint: Facebook, Intel, Dreamworks... my email is below). 

I have specifics on why these options are probable, what the actual speeds are, and the costs for each components. Contact us for more info and system requirements estimates

Background Assumptions

• DRAM is fastest, Optane is somewhat slower  but good enough. DRAM acts as cache for Optane DIMMS (Optane requires DRAM, it doesn't replace DRAM)
• NVDIMM-N is DRAM speed... and DRAM density ... and more expensive than DRAM. But Persistent!
• You still need to store stuff and HDD is about 50x cheaper than Optane, 10x cheaper than SSD

The Hypothetical Costs to a end user for some typical options

• If you want TONS of addressable memory, Optane DIMMS might be the answer
• If you want speed and persistence, NVDIMM-N might be the answer
• If you want max speed and not persistence DRAM only might be the answer
• If you are cheap: 64GB of DRAM plus an off brand SSD from Craigslist will do the trick

Just an opinion!

Mark Webb

www.mkwventures.com

Persistent Memory Summit 2018

Persistent Memory Summit 2018

Today is the summit that brings together many of the people working in persistent memory to discuss the future, standards, and technologies.

There will be lots of discussions on standards, programming models, and changes to computing. But there are a few pragmatic questions we are getting answers to as well this week




1) Today's Technologies: NVDIMM-N is here today and is in use in many applications. How big is the market, who are the leaders, and how fast is it growing?

2) Tomorrow's Technologies: Intel has been talking about Optane DIMMs for a long time. But customers are still waiting for production DIMMs and the CPU to go with it. Are we on track for Sep 2018 availability

3) Software to take advantage of these technologies can be slow to come out. When are the leaders planning on being able to fully take advantage of large persistent memory. If I have 1-2TB of Memory... are we ready for it?

4) Overall Market... if we look at NVDIMMS from all technologies... when do we get to the bit shipments being same as DRAM DIMMS? density is 10x... so it should be quick!


Mark Webb
www.mkwventures.com

SSD Growth Forecast in Compute Markets: Enterprise/Datacenter

Datacenter/Enterprise: SSDs provide 30% of units and  15% of capacity sold in 2017. 

Projections for ALL SSDs and applications from a number of outlets are 15-19% unit growth and 15-20% Revenue growth. We have all the details behind those numbers if you want them but some specifics on SSD/HDD ratio on Enterprise/Datacenter

SSD% of total Enterprise HDD+SSD unit sales finished 2017 just around 30%, climbing from 23% in 2016. For 2018 we predict continued growth to 36%.  Due to nearline and Cold storage HDD dominance, SSDs provide <15% of the new capacity sold in the enterprise today. 

Note: SSDs are less than 15% of NEW capacity sold. they are less than 10% of total capacity

By Application:

• SSDs replace mission critical 10K/15K HDDs at a very fast rate as cost per IOPs is equivalent or better. SSDs should replace 90% of this market eventually
• SSDs in server markets are growing steadily in PCIe and SATA applications
• SSDs continue to make little impact in nearline and cold storage applications
• TLC utilization will support SSD growth in all applications

Reasons for methodical increase:

• SSD $/GB Pricing is still 10x HDD Pricing in most enteprise applications
• SSD Prices are dropping but so are HDD prices. no crossover coming
• Anything with $/IOPS Metric is moving to SSD. Anything with $/GB Metric (Nearline/Cold) is staying HDD
• Enterprise customers are slow to move and change configurations. 10K/15K HDDs still sell even though there is limited rationale for using them over SSDs

For details on attach rates, SSD pricing, HDD pricing, and cost assumptions over the next 5 years, contact us!

From WDC presentation 90% of data is still HDD in 2022:

Side note: Optane (p4800x) and Fast NAND applications (Z-NAND and products from WDC/Hynix/Toshiba) will impact server NVMe SSDs sales for fastest applications. The Jury is still out on how much of a premium customers are willing to pay over NAND SSDs. 

www.mkwventures.com

SSD Growth Forecast in Compute Markets: Client Notebooks

SSD sales are growing and attach rate is increasing in all compute markets. The question is: How Fast? How Much?     

Projections for SSDs from a number of outlets are 15-19% unit growth and 15-20% Revenue growth. We have all the details behind those numbers if you want them but some specifics on attach rates. 

Client Notebook SSD attach rate finished 2017 just around 50%, climbing from 20% in 2014. For 2018 we predict continued steady growth fueled by SSD/NAND price drops. The average attach rate for 2018 will exceed 55%  ... growing to almost 70% by end of 2019..... if NAND Prices start to drop as expected. No tipping point is coming.... 

Reasons for methodical increase: 

• SSD $/GB Pricing is still 8x HDD Pricing
• SSD Prices are dropping but so are HDD prices. SSD $/GB multiplier is 3x HDD in 2021
• Many people still want large capacity drives
• SSD performance is better than HDD, but it is not required for any application

For details on attach rates, SSD pricing, HDD pricing, and cost assumptions over the next 5 years, contact us!

Side note: at this point, we dont see an impact of Optane SSDs or Memory on these numbers. Optane doesn't impact notebook market at this time. See Desktop report summary for impact on that market.

Mark Webb

www.mkwventures.com