Samsung Electronics, Once Again Establishes Ultra-Gap in SSD Driving Performance Responsibility

Remote Work and Online Classes Drive Significant Growth in Consumer Sales
Samsung to Surpass HDD Market Share This Year
Samsung Unveils Product with 2x Speed Increase

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] This year, the global solid-state drive (SSD) market's total sales volume is expected to surpass that of hard disk drives (HDD) for the first time ever. Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the expansion of remote work and online classes, and increased demand for high-definition gaming, consumer SSD sales have surged significantly. Samsung Electronics, holding a dominant 30% market share in the rapidly growing SSD market, plans to maintain its lead by launching next-generation SSDs with the highest performance ever.

According to market research firm Omdia and industry sources on the 23rd, global SSD sales this year are projected to reach a total of 299.68 million units, accounting for 51% of the entire storage market, surpassing HDD sales and market share (49%) for the first time in history. The global SSD revenue share is expected to exceed 60% for the first time this year.

SSD demand is rapidly increasing due to the non-face-to-face trend across society driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, companies are increasing the adoption of SSDs in personal computers to establish remote work environments. The biggest advantage of SSDs over HDDs is their faster read and write speeds. They are shock-resistant, consume less power, and generate relatively less noise. The recent rise of e-sports and the release of new console game systems have also driven demand for high-performance products with fast operation speeds, further expanding the SSD market.

Accordingly, the industry expects that the success of the SSD market in the second half of this year will continue to influence semiconductor performance. Samsung Electronics temporarily halted HDD production in 2011 and has been actively developing SSDs since then. As of last year, Samsung Electronics maintained its industry-leading SSD market share at 30.5%. The company introduced the world's first 'Never Die SSD FIP' technology last year, which allows NAND chips used in SSDs to function without issues even if errors occur.

On the same day, Samsung also unveiled the next-generation consumer SSD '980 PRO' with the highest performance ever. This product doubles the speed compared to its predecessor and offers enhanced stability, providing optimal quality for high-performance PCs, workstations, and console game systems. The '980 PRO' is Samsung Electronics' first consumer SSD to apply the 4th generation PCIe (PCI Express) interface and is an 'NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory express)' product. It achieves top performance by designing all core components in-house, including a dedicated controller and 6th generation V-NAND. It delivers approximately twice the speed of the '970 PRO' released in 2018 and nearly 13 times faster performance than typical SATA SSDs.

The share of SSDs in the global memory market is also strengthening. Cloud service providers are using enhanced SSD technology to serve more users with the same resources, increasing product competitiveness. Additionally, the latest SSDs can handle some virtualization functions previously managed solely by data center server CPUs, significantly reducing CPU usage and the number of installed SSDs, enabling server miniaturization.

An industry insider said, "The miniaturization and high-performance SSD technology that overcomes the drawbacks of HDDs has already greatly surpassed HDDs," adding, "The global SSD market, leveraging NAND flash technology, is expected to grow even further."