Abstract
Most market participants are puzzled at the outlook for hybrid hard drives and
Intel' s Turbo Memory technology. These approaches are new, and they could meet
with challenges, but so could another market: solid state drives, which is
intertwined with these two. This report carefully dissects the market for NAND
HDD caches and explains who will win, who will lose, and what strategies will
work best. It explains:
- 1. What the technology is.
- 2. What its failings are.
- 3. How it will play out against SSDs and HDDs.
- 4. Who are the key proponents and what their impact is.
- 5. Why interested parties should watch this market.
Table of Contents
- Executive Summary
- Introduction: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
- About Disk Caching
- Is this Really a New Idea?
- Why Is this Happening Today Rather than Five Years Ago?
- Why the Change from Existing Technology?
- The Critical Role of Software
- What Disk Caching Brings to the Party
- Fast Boot
- Lower Power
- Increased Reliability
- Ruggedness
- What Are the Alternative Technologies?
- HDD and SSD
- ReadyDrive
- Hybrid Hard Drives
- Intel' s Turbo Memory-NAND on the Motherboard
- ReadyBoost
- The Technology
- How Disk Caching Works
- Why Write Caching Has Not Been Used Until Now
- How NAND Suddenly Became Attractive
- Potential Pitfalls With Write Endurance
- An Introduction to NAND Wear
- How Wear-Leveling Approaches the Problem
- Ramifications for the User
- Likely User Perceptions of NAND Wear
- The Key Players
- Microsoft-The Prime Mover
- Samsung-The Early Adopter
- Other HDD Makers-Reluctant Followers
- Intel-A Fresh Approach
- Issues: Separating Hybrids from Turbo Memory
- Density and Cost Trends for Each Technology
- Comparing Costs: HDD vs. NAND
- How Capacity Concerns Determine Which Storage to Use
- Conclusions
- Methodology
- Glossary
- Related In-Stat Reports
- Appendix
List of Tables
- Table 1. NAND and DRAM Average Price per Gigabyte
- Table 2. System Cost for Mass Storage of Various Capacities
- Table 3. Progression of Crossover Point over Time
- Table 4. NAND-Cached HDD Unit Shipments Forecast by PC Type
- Table 5. Forecast of Disk Sales by Type Into the PC Market
List of Figures
- Figure 1. NAND-Cached HDD Unit Shipments Forecast by PC Type 1
- Figure 2. Typical HDD with DRAM Cache
- Figure 3. Adding a NAND Write Cache to the HDD
- Figure 4. Reading “Pinned” Data from the NAND
- Figure 5. NAND and DRAM Average Price per Gigabyte
- Figure 6. Cross Section of Floating Gate Memory Bit Cell
- Figure 7. Electrons Trapped in Tunnel Oxide Layer
- Figure 8. Historical Price Progressions for NAND, DRAM, and HDD
- Figure 9. System Cost for Mass Storage of Various Capacities
- Figure 10. Progression of Crossover Point over Time
- Figure 11. NAND-Cached HDD Unit Shipments Forecast by PC Type
- Figure 12. Forecast of Disk Sales by Type into the PC Market
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