Seagate Steers Buyers Away From SSDs

By Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2010-06-28

When a company urges consumers to buy the latest and greatest thing, the message/advertisement can often be ignored. Seagate has taken the opposite approach, however, informing individuals (and companies) that solid-state drives aren't for everyone, and that idea definitely deserves some attention.

True, SSDs are faster than traditional hard disk drives. Also, no company wants to be seen as using outdated tech.

Still, Teresa Worth, a senior product marketing manager at Seagate, "does not believe that SSDs will replace HDDs anytime soon, as the company considers Flash a complimentary technology," according to Wolfgang Gruener, who interviewed her.

A lot of progress needs to occur in terms of increasing storage capacities and decreasing price, of course. And Worth believes "the industry will have to move from SLC to MLC chips to achieve that goal, which may be difficult at least in the enterprise space as MLC drives . . . are less durable."

There's perhaps little reason to replace every storage device in sight with something new, then, regardless of how intriguing SSDs may be. At least pick and choose carefully, since their speed isn't called for in every situation and losing data can be a nightmare.

The money that will be saved by sticking with HDDs can then go towards marketing efforts or any number of other things that should have a more direct impact on a business's bottom line.

About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.