SSDs: What Every Reseller Needs To Know

By John Pearring, sales manager, STORserver

The army of data protection folks out there in customer land just got an upgraded piece of hardware. Their fight to maintain recoverable copies of data just got easier due to the upcoming addition of solid state drive (SSD). Resellers need to get ready for this new revenue stream by taking the time to study, compare, position, and help customers make the shift from disk to SSD. The original excitement over SSD waned considerably when the price per terabyte matched the cost of a midsize car. The next hit came when SSD’s mean time between failure (MTBF) estimates hovered around 9 months. And, now, a large portion of laptops will probably be all SSD within the next couple of years.

Inevitably, lower prices will come to SSDs. Pundits have been praising the disk replacement and near memory speed of SSD, and for good reason. The limitations of disk have been met. Data sizes and movement expectations have reached the nadir of science fiction. Plus, the mechanical metal on metal friction of disk spindles worries folks today, similar to the fret over spinning head damage on linear tape from 10 years ago.

What’s this mean for selling data protection solutions and architectures? I believe we’re heightening the pyramid of hierarchical storage, which will increase the range of options available for customers. SSD moves to the top of the food chain, and tape moves further down. And, the timing couldn’t be any better.