Hitachi and Intel plan to jointly develop solid-state drives (SSDs) designed for the enterprise, though first products aren't expected to roll out for a couple of years.
Intel will be the lone supplier of flash memory for Hitachi's first foray into high-end SSDs for the enterprise, the companies announced.
"The new solid-state drives for the enterprise include a number of architectural breakthroughs and imrpove performance and energy usage models that will change enterprise computing," said Randy WIlhelm, Intel VP and GM for NAND solutions. "Intel and Hitachi GST share a common objective in delivering SAS/FC products based on solid-state technology that will help enterprise customers meet the skyrocketing demands for performance while reducing space, power and cooling costs."
Intel is expected to provide SSD technologies and materials necessary, and Hitachi will offer insight into qualification, reliability, and system integration for the new SSDs.
Hitachi is the third-largest HDD maker -- trailing Seagate and Western Digital -- but has remained hesitant to dedicate itself towards SSDs. Intel, still best known for its CPUs, has freelanced in the flash memory market, competing against SanDisk, Toshiba, Samsung, and other companies that fight for market share.
The first jointly produced SSDs from Intel and Hitachi are expected to be released starting in 2010.
Even though it appears SSDs will take over at some point in the future, the higher price per gigabyte when compared to HDDs has stifled adoption of the technology. SSDs, unlike HDDs, don't have any moving parts, which makes them more reliable, while also being faster and more energy efficient than HDDs.
Toshiba is producing SSDs for both the enterprise and consumer market, while Hitachi said its SSD business will focus exclusively towards servers and computer storage systems. The company also will not stop selling HDDs, as Toshiba executives still believe HDDs are vital, especially for larger data storage.
Analysts expect fireworks from the SSD market starting in 2011 and 2012, but warn SSD adoption will remain low until then.
