Western Digital and Seagate quiet on the SSD front?

[Hulk]

Now that SSDs are beginning to penetrate the mainstream market I find it odd that the two 800lb gorillas of the storage industry, Western Digital and Seagate, still seem to have no SSD products, or even anything on the horizon?

Now I understand that the technologies are vastly different. Most notably if you are going to produce your own SSD you need fabs to make the chips. And I also realize that fabs are expensive. But it would seem there is a lot of expertise in building an SSD outside of the memory chips that can be brought to bear by these two companies. And the longer they wait to enter the market the harder time they are going to have making the transition since the "start up" SSD companies are working out the bugs in their products as I type this.

It just seems strange to me that they are almost ignoring the SSD as though it were a fad. We are on the cusp of mainstream adoption and with it prices will fall dramatically. Once that happens large drives are going to be relegated to media storage and back-up. Then eventually they'll be back-up only devices. And then they'll be gone.

 

[blackened23]

Now that SSDs are beginning to penetrate the mainstream market I find it odd that the two 800lb gorillas of the storage industry, Western Digital and Seagate, still seem to have no SSD products, or even anything on the horizon?

Now I understand that the technologies are vastly different. Most notably if you are going to produce your own SSD you need fabs to make the chips. And I also realize that fabs are expensive. But it would seem there is a lot of expertise in building an SSD outside of the memory chips that can be brought to bear by these two companies. And the longer they wait to enter the market the harder time they are going to have making the transition since the "start up" SSD companies are working out the bugs in their products as I type this.

It just seems strange to me that they are almost ignoring the SSD as though it were a fad. We are on the cusp of mainstream adoption and with it prices will fall dramatically. Once that happens large drives are going to be relegated to media storage and back-up. Then eventually they'll be back-up only devices. And then they'll be gone.

They wouldn't be able to compete effectively with the likes of OCZ, corsair, etc -- all of those companies are memory manufacturers and therefore have access to many of the components of SSDs for substantially lower prices.

Also, while I think ssd's are great for enthusiasts....there is still a need for platter HDD's especially in the enterprise sector

 

[RU482]

They wouldn't be able to compete effectively with the likes of OCZ, corsair, etc -- all of those companies are memory module manufacturers and therefore have access to many of the components of SSDs for substantially lower prices.

there, fixed that for ya

 

[greenhawk]

WD, IIRC, did do a SSD which was more of a rebadge IIRC. It used one of the original unstable controllers so was not very popular. They have not tried again that I have noticed.

Seagate, proberly is looking to protect their server end market as they have not even looked to match WD's raptors in the consumer market. If seagate is not going to match WD, then no one else will try.

 

[frostedflakes]

I thought the WD SiliconEdge were actually pretty solid and reliable drives. It used one of the updated JMicron controllers, which aren't terrible like the older ones. Their SSDs were just expensive, especially for the performance you got, which was pretty underwhelming.

Anyway, HDD will still be around for a while, SSD isn't close to reaching parity with spindle-based disks in $/GB, and for storing music, movies, stuff like that, $/GB is king and the performance advantage of SSD is pretty irrelevant. I guess WD and Seagate just think their resources are better spent right now focusing on what they already do well instead of trying to get into an already very competitive and probably low margin SSD market.

 

[Hulk]

Good points. It just seems like a short sighted strategy. I have a feeling in this regard the future will be here sooner than most people think. I'm a pretty cost conscious person but based on reviews I spent the $200 for an Intel 320 120GB SSD, just to see what all the hubbub was all about. To put it bluntly it totally blew my socks off. Boot times, application load times, amazing. There are applications that now literally open in 2 seconds that used to take 15 to 20 seconds to open. It's enough where in the past I'd avoid working in the app if I only had 10 minutes or something to take care of an issue. Now I'll pop it open and closed at will.

I could NEVER go back to a disk drive for my boot drive. The difference in performance is astounding. And I can only imagine how amazing it must be in a laptop where you are starting out with a dog slow drive and moving to a SSD that is exactly the same as what is in your desktop. And my Intel 320 is, from what Anand wrote, pretty much a last generation drive performance-wise.

 

[taltamir]

Last I heard WD bought out an SSD maker...

And Seagate CEO said (years ago, when SSDs were just starting) that "SSD technology as a whole is infringing on Seagate owned patents"... so I am guessing Seagate intends to become a patent troll.

They could simply fade away... lack of people who have the authority and care in power... Remember blockbuster?