-Micron is an industry leader in the innovative memory and storage solutions space transforming how the world uses information to enrich life for all. In an interaction with NCN Magazine, Mr. Rajesh Gupta, Director – India/SAARC Sales talks in detail regarding the evolving trends in SSDs,
How the SSD market is Evolving in India!
The ubiquitous need for sleeker, lighter, multi-tasking, longer battery life & high performing computing devices is driving the need for SSDs and making it essential in any next gen device. SSD is growing at an exponential rate in India. The recent QoQ growth is above 25%. The users are not just upgrading to faster protocol but getting computing devices with SSD built in already. The cost parity has pushed further adoption of consumer internal SSDs in India market.
What are the latest technology and market trends in the SSD space today?
The SSD space is fast changing due to the change in users’ requirements. Technology breakthroughs like Micron’s 232L 3D NAND is helping reduce the TCO of SSDs and help users adopt higher capacities. The users need to multitask and need better experience which is helping customers shift from SATA SSDs to NVMe SSDs. The space requirements have increased manifolds forcing users to buy higher capacity drives. Even few games require 1TB or higher capacity drives. The SATA SSDs which still represent bulk of the market for general requirements is making way for NVMe SSDs due to new roles like designers/social media influencers/professionals/gamers requiring both capacity and performance. Users have moved from NVMe Gen 3 SSDs to NVMe Gen4 SSDs and enthusiasts/designers/youtubers/gamers/professionals are adopting Gen 5 NVMe SSD like Crucial T700 for extreme performance, simplified design and efficient heat sink. The backward compatible Crucial SSDs are helping users to make the switch to NVMe Gen 4/Gen 5 seamless.
How do you compare the prices of HDDs vs SSDs? In what ways SSDs are superior to HDDs?
The SSD pricing has come at par with HDD pricing thanks to the technological advances pioneered by Micron like 232 layer 3D NAND introduction in consumer internal SSD which is helping to increase performance, lower latency and TCO of the drives. Typical SATA SSD would perform at least 5 times faster than typical HDDs. NVMe SSDs specially Gen 4 provide way higher (50x) perform boost upto 6600 MBps for sequential reads and Gen 5 NVMe SSDs add 70% performance boost over and above Gen 4 NVMe SSD levels. In addition to better throughput SSDs also deliver way lower latency typically 0.2ms vs 10 to 15ms latency of HDDs. The SSDs are superior to HDDs in almost every way right from performance (both sequential and random), power consumption, idle power/dev sleep, lighter in weight, helping elongate battery life, sleeker design, multitasking capabilities to users etc. Micron’s 232L 3D NAND helped to create world’s first 2TB SSD in just 22x30mm form factor.
How is the lack of data recovery feature of SSDs going to impact the customer preference?
SSD are way more reliable than HDDs. In general AFR for SSDs is around 0.2% against 6-8% for HDDs. SSDs are reliable as they have no mechanical components and handle shocks way better than HDDs. The data recovery is difficult though it’s an evolving field but in a way helps keep data secure from unauthorized access in case of stolen drives. Ideally the users need to keep backup strategy ready to recover.
How are you targeting the users upgrading from HDDs to SSDs? How big is this space?
The users are upgrading due to capacity and/or performance requirements. With higher resolution cameras the audio/video storage required has increased manifold. Few games alone require 1TB or higher space. The need to post same video on multiple platforms with varied resolution/format etc requirements forces users to upgrade to higher capacity SSD. The need to multitask or quickly create/transform videos customer are moving to SATA to NVMe Gen 3 to NVMe Gen 4 to NVMe Gen 5. The backward compatible nature of Crucial SSDs portfolio helps users confidently use latest T700 or P5 plus on older platforms which works to the best ability of the platform possible. The upgrade market is major contributor to the overall SSD market in India. The users upgrade based on their requirements and at a fraction of the cost then buying a higher system. The HDD to SSD upgrade is not much, as SSDs are ubiquitous due to multiple design requirements of systems e.g., space/power/performance/relaibility constraints of HDDs.
What are your USPs for SSDs over your competitors? How do you overcome competition in this space?
Micron has complete end to end control on our SSDs right from NAND manufacturing to the end product. Every step of the process is handled in-house, from creating flash media out of silicon wafers to building printed circuit boards to assembling the finished products. The State-of-the-art 232L 3D NAND inherently helps us reduce latency, increase performance, higher capacity (with industry leading die size) and reduce TCO of our SSDs. Micron became the first Tier 1 vendor to bring the Gen 5 NVMe SSD – T700 to the market with most efficient premium heatsinks for maximum heat dissipation without noisy fans or liquid cooling blocks. T700 provides the industry’s highest performance of 12.4Gbps which is at least 20% higher than competing Gen 5 SSDs and 70%higher than Gen 4 SSDs. With years of experience working with ecosystem players, Crucial provides compatibility with Intel, AMD & Microsoft DirectStorage. For users who would like to use the Motherboard provided heat sink for example, T700 offers a non-heatsink option as well.
How are SSDs doing in the gaming segment? What solutions do you have in this segment?
SSDs are a must have for gaming segment. Crucial offers T700 (NVMe Gen 5) and P5 plus (NVMe Gen 4) for the gaming segment. To cater to increasing games sizes, T700 is offered with 1,2 & 4TB capacity options. In addition to higher performance in both Gen 5 and Gen 4 segments, the efficient heat sinks offer highest performance even at elevated temp without the fear of throttling down in the middle of playing games. As explained above, T700 is an industry leading offering with highest performance (12.4GBps) from a tier 1 player, which is at least 20% higher than competing Gen 5 SSDs and 70% higher than Gen 4 SSDs.
How do you educate your partners on your SSDs and their technology?
Our partners are regularly educated using webinars, zoom calls, Tech Days, joint customer calls in both online as well offline manner. In addition, continuous mailers/ whitepapers /collaterals keep partners abreast about new offerings, target segments, use cases and cost benefit analysis.
What future trends do you foresee for SSDs?
SSDs are growing at an exponential rate and poised to become the biggest target market for NAND by 2025. NVMe SSDs are the future and SATA SSDs would keep losing share for most of the use cases. NVMe Gen 4 to Gen 5 transition in the consumer/client space would accelerate beyond enthusiasts/early adopters, Gamers etc in next year. The edge storage would increase adoption of SSDs. The small form factors SSDs are growing way faster as users need higher capacity in lower foot print.
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