How to transition to NVMe SSDs from SAS/SATA

Getting ahead of the SSD interface performance curve requires foresight and careful planning. As NVMe technology evolves, new adopters are looking for ways to ease the changeover. Nonvolatile memory express has emerged as the open logical device interface specification that future generations

of storage systems will be built upon, promising significant performance acceleration at economics that cannot be equaled by earlier generation SAS/SATA systems. In fact, when compared with NVMe SSDs, SAS and SATA have become legacy design interfaces. And IT experts are taking notice.

A growing number of enterprises are beginning to recognize that, if they truly want to benefit from SSD performance, they need to move toward NVMe technology with a direct attachment to the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) bus.

"This ... gets you as close as possible to the CPU," explained Ian McClarty, president of PhoenixNAP Global IT Services. The approach, he added, dramatically reduces latency and increases speeds through multiple PCIe lanes, thereby relieving the bottlenecks faced by SAS/SATA interface users.

Making the move

The transition to NVMe SSD technology will likely take place gradually over the next several years. Luckily for current SAS/SATA users, they don't have to face the immediate prospect of ripping and replacing their existing storage technology or attempting a forklift upgrade. "Instead, [new adopters] should look to implement future-proof architectures that will allow them to scale with new innovations in flash technology," said Jeff Baxter, chief evangelist of ONTAP at storage and data management software provider NetApp. "Some existing NVMe-ready solutions will allow customers to nondisruptively add new NVMe storage arrays directly into existing scale-out architectures and expand or move workloads as appropriate from current HDD or SAS/SATA-attached SSD arrays to NVMe SSD-based arrays over time," he added.

Before launching an NVMe transition, IT leaders should first determine whether their incumbent storage array is NVMe-capable. "In other words, is the array capable of seamlessly adding #NVMe SSDs without requiring a major reconfiguration or data migration?" asked @NarayanVenkat, @WesternDigital 's vice president of #datacenter systems for @Tegile #flash storage arrays. "If so, then simply replacing a few of the SAS/SATA SSDs with NVMe provides the benefits of instant performance acceleration without any disruption to applications."

Unfortunately, Venkat added, most incumbent storage systems aren't capable of seamless NVMe SSD support, since the products weren't designed from the outset with NVMe SSD compatibility in mind.

Navigating compatibility pitfalls

If an incumbent storage array isn't fully NVMe-compatible, as is typically the case, the only practical solution is to upgrade to an NVMe-based storage system that has been designed from the outset to take advantage of the speed and performance of NVMe SSDs. With this approach, managers can easily migrate applications and data to their new NVMe-based storage systems. "Migration is simple for virtualized environments, like VMware, as administrators can move virtual machines, along with applications and data, with a few clicks," Venkat observed.

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/tip/How-to-transition-to-NVMe-SSDs-from-SAS-SATA

NVM Express, Inc. Elects Cavium, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Intel, Microsemi and NetApp to Promoter Board for 2018

@NVM Express, Inc. Elects @Cavium, @Cisco, @Dell, @Facebook, @Intel, @Microsemi and @NetApp to Promoter Board for 2018 Promoters range from OEMs to Enterprise Data Suppliers February 01, 2018 05:21 PM Eastern Standard Time BEAVERTON, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--@NVMExpress, Inc. elected @Cavium, @Cisco, @Dell, @Facebook, @Intel, @Microsemi and @NetApp to join their Board of Directors, the NVM Express Promoters Group. Existing Promoter members include @Micron, @Microsoft, @Samsung, @Seagate, @Toshiba and @Western Digital. NVM Express elects Cavium, Cisco, Dell, Facebook, Intel, Microsemi and NetApp to 2018 Promoter Board. Tweet this The NVM Express Inc., offering an open collection of NVM Express (NVMe™) specifications and resources on the benefits of non-volatile memory, holds an election for a group of the NVM Express Promoters Group representatives at the end of each year. The elected representatives occupy a two-year term and are eligible for re-election. All NVM Express, Inc. Contributor and Promoter member companies may run for Promoter positions. “Storage architectures are undergoing a sea change with NVM Express playing a pivotal role,” Craig W. Carlson, Senior Technologist, said. “Cavium is a leader in NVMe and has been actively working with the industry on NVMe over Fabric technologies for both Ethernet and Fibre Channel for some time, and with our participation on the Board of Directors we look forward to helping steward the broader NVM Express mission going forward.” The NVM Express Promoter Group is responsible for the operations and financial management of the organization, as well as being the stewards of the specification and standard. To learn more about the NVM Express Promoter Group election process and responsibilities, check out the NVMe Bylaws. About NVM Express, Inc. With more than 100 members, NVM Express, Inc. is a non-profit organization focused on enabling broad ecosystem adoption of high performance and low latency non-volatile memory (NVM) storage through a standards-based approach. The organization offers an open collection of NVM Express (NVMe™) specifications and information to fully expose the benefits of non-volatile memory in all types of computing environments from mobile to data center. NVMe-based specifications are designed from the ground up to deliver high bandwidth and low latency storage access for current and future NVM technologies. For more information, visit http://www.nvmexpress.org. Follow NVM Express on Twitter and LinkedIn Supporting Quotes for NVMe Express, Inc. 2018 Board of Directors Dell EMC “Dell has been working on NVMe since its inception and is one of the leading suppliers of NVMe storage for both enterprise servers and client applications. We believe that NVMe presents a unique opportunity to radically redefine the capabilities of client and server based storage subsystems. As a member of the Board of Directors, we want to work to insure that NVMe has the features and capabilities needed to enable high performance next generation storage subsystems.” — William Lynn, Distinguished Engineer Microsemi Corp., Performance Storage Business Unit “NVMe is the only interface standard that meets the needs of current (Flash) as well as next generation NVM and Microsemi is committed to its success. Microsemi Corp. is a leader in NVMe controllers and custom NVMe board level solution products. Microsemi is also a PCIe switch supplier and is working to enhance PCIe switching to meet the needs of NVMe storage systems.” — Peter Onufryk, Fellow NetApp Inc. “NVMe provides a technology that can be used in a wide variety of environments from laptops to Enterprise data centers. We believe the Promoters Group should contain a balance of representatives from device vendors, host users of storage, and Enterprise data center suppliers. We will bring input that is representative of all those environments to help NVMe become the ubiquitous storage protocol of the future.” — Frederick Knight, Principal Standards Technologist

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180201006644/en/NVM-Express-Elects-Cavium-Cisco-Dell-Facebook

The hard disk drive and memory chip maker saw record revenue of $5.3 billion, thanks to solid demand for enterprise and NAND based products.

@WesternDigital reported its second quarter financial results on Thursday, beating market expectations thanks to a "healthy" demand in enterprise storage and #NAND #flash. The company reported a net loss of $823 million, or $2.78 a share. Non-GAAP earnings were $3.95 per share on revenue of $5.3 billion, up from $4.9 billion from a year ago. The company said the net loss was due to a $1.6 billion repatriation tax as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Wall Street was looking for earnings of $3.79 a share on revenue of $5.29 billion.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/western-digital-q2-earnings-record-revenue/

Seagate Bags Toshiba’s Memory Business in Partnership with Tech Giants

@Bain Capital, @Apple, and @Dell ( #DVMT ) part of consortium In September 2017, @Seagate ( #STX ) announced its participation in the consortium led by Bain Capital Private Equity to acquire @Toshiba ’s (TOSYY) memory business. The other companies that are part of this consortium are Apple (AAPL) and Dell Technologies (DVMT). This consortium successfully bid $18.0 billion for Toshiba’s chip business. During Seagate’s fiscal 1Q18 earnings call, CEO Dave Mosley stated, “We are pleased to be part of the consortium and to help facilitate maintaining Toshiba Memory as a world-leading, independent NAND technology company.”  Interested in AAPL? Don't miss the next report.  Email SIGN UP Seagate has developed a long-term partnership with Toshiba and is optimistic about the latter’s leadership in NAND technology. The top three flash memory vendors in terms of market share are Samsung (SSNLF), Toshiba, and Western Digital (WDC) with shares of 35%, 20%, and 15%, respectively. Seagate is expected to contribute $1.3 billion to finance the Toshiba acquisition. Seagate aims to enter into a long-term NAND supply agreement with Toshiba, which is likely to expand the company’s product portfolio. Seagate has already developed its NAND storage technology portfolio over the last few years and now has a broad offering of flash-based products targeting multiple markets. Seagate expects this acquisition of Toshiba to help in product innovation that will provide enterprises with storage solutions in the HDD (hard disk drive) and SSD (solid state drive) space. This acquisition may potentially result in revenue growth in Seagate’s NAND storage segment as well as provide significant value for customers. Seagate beat WDC in Toshiba bid Western Digital was another firm interested in acquiring Toshiba’s memory chip business and had bid $13 billion for the same. WDC was banking on its long-standing joint venture (that started way back in 2000) to acquire Toshiba Memory. WDC then set up a consortium with the Innovation Network of Japan, the Development Bank of Japan, and US private equity firm KKR as well as revised its acquisition bid to $17.3 billion.

http://marketrealist.com/2017/12/seagate-bags-toshibas-memory-business-partnership-tech-giants/

Toshiba's Investing ¥7 billion In 7th NAND Fab

With the dust settled, the feud wiped clean with manufacturing partner @WesternDigital, and a $17.7 billion cash infusion from investor @BainCapital, @Toshiba is ready to let loose with new memory technologies coming from new manufacturing facilities. Toshiba currently has Fab 6 (a manufacturing facility) under construction with a completion date estimated for Q4 2018. That hasn't slowed the company from lining up a new facility in Kitakami, Japan. Toshiba announced plans to invest ¥7 billion ($1.062 billion) in site preparation and initial construction for Fab 7. The news follows other announcements this year to increase memory manufacturing at its @Yokkaichi facility.

@WesternDigital plans to enter into an agreement with @Toshiba to work together in the new Kitakami facility. @Toshiba and Western Digital's joint venture will push forward (as it should) to take on rivals @Samsung, @Intel @Micron Flash Technologies, and @Sk Hynix.

This has been a record year for new #NAND memory investment. We've seen all of the NAND manufacturers start, complete, or announce new facilities in 2017. The flash shortage certainly helped to pump up profits in 2017 and it looks like the companies will put that money to good use.

The current state of the market is 64-layer memory, but that will soon be a passing as companies prepare for the next chapter that will scale to 96-layers and beyond. We're already starting to see the shortage subside and retail product pricing decline. New innovative products are coming to market using higher bit per die NAND, like the Toshiba XG5 and Crucial MX500.

The new facilities will enable companies to bring new technologies to market even faster. Instead of retrofitting fabs that are up and running, the new production (and time to ramp up) can take place in a new location. This will bring 4-bit per cell (QLC) NAND to market even faster. We even expect to see working prototype at CES with QLC memory at CES 2018.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/toshiba-invests-new-nand-fab,36165.html

Traditional Storage Vendors Like HPE and DellEMC Under Fire as Cloud Vendors Upend Storage Market

Stock quotes in this article: #INTC, #HPE, #IBM, #NTAP, #ORCL, #NTNX, #VMW, #RHT, #PSTG, #WDC, #GOOGL, #FB, #AMZN, #MSFT, #CSCO Outside of mobile phones, it's tough to think of a big tech hardware field that has seen changes on the scale that enterprise storage has witnessed over the last decade. An industry whose sales once revolved around a relatively limited number of systems respectively aimed at large enterprises and small/mid-sized businesses, and which was dominated by a handful of big players, has evolved to one in which a much wider variety of hardware and software architectures are actively used. And in which the number of meaningful players has swelled. One only has to look at research firm IDC's recent sales estimates to see how the landscape is changing. After having risen by just 2.9% annually in Q2 and declining fractionally in Q1, IDC thinks total spending on enterprise storage systems grew 14% in Q3 to $11.77 billion, as an Intel Corp. (INTC) server CPU refresh lifted depressed corporate sales (for now) and capital spending by cloud giants remained strong. But less 10% of this revenue growth went to the industry's 5 biggest players, and their combined share fell to 54.9% from 59.1% a year earlier. In Q2, ahead of the Intel refresh, the top 5 vendors saw their combined storage revenue drop by nearly $1 billion to $5.8 billion. Their combined share fell to 54% from 64.9% a year earlier. IDC thinks Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (HPE) , the industry's biggest player, saw its share drop by 2.9 percentage points in Q3 to 20.2%, and by 3.7 percentage points in Q2 to 20.1%. The declines would be larger if not for HPE's $1 billion April purchase of midmarket flash and hybrid storage array vendor Nimble Storage, which did $322 million in product sales during its last full fiscal year as an independent firm. No. 2 player Dell, which in 2016 acquired storage giant EMC, is estimated by IDC to have seen its share drop by 2.3 percentage points in Q3 to 18.8%. In Q2, when the corporate sales that Dell/EMC rely on were weaker, its share fell 7.5 percentage points to 18.4%. IBM Corp. (IBM) and Hitachi, who were tied at #4 in Q3, have also been losing share. Last quarter, their combined share fell to 8.3% from 9.6% a year ago. No. 3 player NetApp Inc. (NTAP) , which is a couple weeks removed from posting a strong October quarter report and upbeat guidance, has been faring better: Its share rose 0.3 percentage points in Q3 to 6%. But the lion's share of industry growth has gone to a group of vendors IDC refers to as "ODM Direct." They consist of contract manufacturers (many based out of Taiwan) that supply modular, low-power servers with integrated storage to third parties -- to a large degree, cloud giants such as Alphabet/Google (GOOGL) , Facebook (FB) , Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) . The designs and specs for these systems are typically created by the cloud giants themselves, in some cases for open-source initiatives such as the Facebook-spawned Open Compute Project. The systems are deployed within giant data centers relying on hyperconverged architectures that allow thousands of server/storage systems to be pooled and jointly managed, with admins able to quickly add new hardware nodes as needed. In addition, smaller independent storage vendors have been collectively gaining ground. IDC thinks everyone outside of the top-5 and ODM Direct had 24% of the market in Q3 and 22.7% in Q2, up from 23.8% and 21.3% a year earlier. The group's share are likely larger if one backs out some traditional enterprise players that have been losing share, such as Oracle Corp. (ORCL) . Clearly, the preference among cloud giants to rely on their own server/storage designs is a big headwind for old-guard storage vendors, especially as more and more enterprise workloads move to cloud infrastructures. But it also isn't helping that enterprises are also embracing distributed server/storage systems. While incumbent players claim a big piece of this pie, there's more competition here overall than there is for traditional external storage systems, and -- due to the fact that many of these systems rely on commodity hardware -- margins are often lower. Hyperconverged solutions, offered to enterprises by the likes of HPE and Cisco (CSCO) as well as upstarts such as Nutanix Inc. (NTNX) , are one piece of the pie. Nutanix's shares rose nearly 10% on Dec. 1 after the company beat estimates on the back of 46% revenue growth and 32% billings growth, and also issued strong guidance. The growing popularity of object storage -- an approach to storage that does away with traditional file systems and folders (like the ones within PC operating systems) in favor of a distributed pool of storage "objects," are another factor. Object storage typically relies on clusters of commodity servers (potentially, but not necessarily, hyperconverged systems) rather than proprietary storage arrays. IBM bought object storage hardware/software firm Cleversafe for $1.3 billion in 2015, and has since reported seeing strong demand for its object storage lineup. Then there's the rising adoption of software platforms that in one form or another can pool the storage resources of many servers and let them be jointly managed/accessed. Dell EMC directly offers one such solution (called ScaleIO), and its VMware Inc. (VMW) unit offers another (called vSAN) meant for use with VMware server virtualization software. But open-source platforms such as Gluster and Ceph -- both are backed by Red Hat Inc. (RHT) -- are also gaining followings. Also: The traditional storage system market's shift away from hard drive-based systems to flash memory-based systems (all-flash arrays, or AFAs) has caused a measure of disruption. While the likes of HPE, Dell EMC and IBM are major players in this space, so are upstarts such as Pure Storage Inc. (PSTG) and Western Digital Corp.'s (WDC) recently-acquired Tegile Systems unit. Pure's sales rose 41% annually in its October quarter to $278 million. Finally, NetApp's turnaround -- fueled by strong demand for its AFAs and clustered network storage offerings, as well as innovative software for jointly managing local and cloud storage -- has become a headache for old-guard peers. NetApp's product sales rose 14% during its October quarter to $807 million. NetApp's focus on storage, and storage only, is helping it hold its ground in a tough and rapidly-changing industry environment. But many of its more diversified traditional rivals are facing tougher sledding.

https://realmoney.thestreet.com/articles/12/01/2017/hpe-and-dell-are-under-pressure-amazon-and-others-upend-storage

Next-Generation Memory Market Worth 9.68 Billion USD by 2023

According to the new market research report "Next-Generation Memory Market by Technology (Volatile (HMC and HBM), and Nonvolatile (MRAM, FRAM, RERAM, 3D XPoint, NRAM)), Wafer Size (200 mm, 300 mm, and 450 mm), Application, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets™, the market is expected to reach from 2.35 Billion in 2017 to USD 9.68 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 26.54% between 2017 and 2023. The NGM market has a huge potential across various applications, such as consumer electronics, enterprise storage, and industrial. The major factor driving the NGM market across the world is the big data demand for increasing demand for enterprise storage applications. The need for high bandwidth, low power consumption, and highly scalable memory device for technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and Big Data is also driving the NGM market.      (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 ) Browse 70 Market Data Tables and 49 Figures spread through 173 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Next-Generation Memory Market - Global Forecast to 2023" https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/Memristor-Memory-Market-632.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report  Market for nonvolatile memory held larger share of NGM market in 2016  The market for nonvolatile memory held a larger share of the NGM market in 2016. Nonvolatile memories, such as ReRAM, STT-MRAM, and 3D XPoint, offer better speed and improved performance compared to volatile memory, such as DRAM and SRAM, along with the higher storage densities. NGM market for consumer electronics application expected to grow at highest CAGR between 2017 and 2023  The NGM market for the consumer electronics application is expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2017 and 2023. The emerging memory technologies are mostly driven by connected and wearable devices. Smartphones, digital cameras, gaming devices, and other consumer electronics devices also need memory technologies in bulk. With the growing consumer electronics market, the demand for emerging memory technologies is also expected to increase. Download PDF Brochure : https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=632 NGM market for 450 mm wafer expected to grow at highest CAGR between 2017 and 2023  450 mm wafer fabs can accommodate more dice per wafer leading to the more storage capacity than that of 300 mm wafer fabs. Additionally, with the increasing wafer cost and feature dimensions, 450 mm wafers would be the most preferred choice for the next-generation memory technologies. APAC leads NGM market in terms of market size  APAC is currently leading the NGM market and is projected to be in a leading position for the next few years owing to the high adoption of NGM. The major drivers for the rapid growth of the NGM market in APAC are the growing number of data centers and servers, increasing shipments of network equipment, and increasing number of manufacturing activities in the enterprise storage and consumer electronics sectors Inquiry Before Buy @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=632 The NGM ecosystem comprises the companies such as #Samsung (South Korea), #Toshiba (Japan), #Micron (US), Intel (US), #WesternDigital (US), #SKHynix (South Korea), #Fujitsu (Japan), #Everspin (US), #Adesto (US), #Microchip (US), #Avalanche (US), #Cypress (US), #IBM (US), #NXPSemiconductor (Netherlands), #Opensilicon (US), #Rambus (US), #SpinTransfer Technologies (US), #TexasInstruments (US), #Viking (US), and #4DSMemory (Australia). The companies profiled also cover the following key innovators: #Crossbar (US), #Nantero (US), #Kilopass (US), and #Sidense (Canada). Browse Related Reports  Solid State Drive (SSD) Market by Form Factor (2.5", 3.5", M.2, U.2/SFF 8639, FHHL/HHHL), Interface (SATA, SAS, PCIe), Technology (SLC, MLC, TLC), End-user (Enterprise, Client, Industrial, Automotive), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023 https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/solid-state-drives-market-75076578.html Non-Volatile Memory Market by Type (Flash (NAND, NOR), EEPROM, NVSRAM, Embedded, EPROM, 3D NAND, MRAM/STTMRAM, FRAM, RERAM/CBRAM, 3D XPOINT, NRAM), End-User Industry, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022 https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/non-volatile-memory-market-1371262.html Subscribe Reports from Electronics and Semiconductors @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Knowledgestore.asp About MarketsandMarkets™   MarketsandMarkets™ provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 5000 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets™ for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets™ are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets™ now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets™ is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/next-generation-memory-market-worth-968-billion-usd-by-2023-660514553.html

NAND Flash Shortage is over; SSDs at $0.29/GB and dropping!

According to price trackers, the pricing of #NAND Supplier-based SSDs has begun to decline; In fact, the decline began in August 2017! Let's dig in..

Today, the pricing of PC-based 1TB SSDs is already at $0.29/GB. This is for all major NAND providers: @WD/ @Sandisk, @Samsung, and @Micron/@Crucial. If you don't believe me, just look at Amazon.com. ($299 divided by 1,024GB = $0.29/GB)

Extrapolating the Enterprise-class pricing (section on this below), we should be looking at today's Enterprise-based SSDs at $0.31/GB. However, the market and the perceived on-going shortage may command higher prices.

By the end of 2018, I expect SSD pricing to be between $0.21/GB and $0.23/GB.

Read on for more details..

Comparing $/GB to Supply/Demand Ratios

I wanted to map today's SSD pricing, as well as the historical pricing of SSDs to the supply/demand ratio of NAND Flash to see whether there is a correlation, whether we are in fact out of a shortage, and predict where future pricing is going.

To do this, I needed to pick a Flash supplier that wouldn't just be dumping Flash at a low price in the channel/retail (I want some visibility on all SSD market segment pricing trends) and find an actual SSD model that had some good historical pricing data to analyze. Based on some recent Analyst reports, Samsung had a ~40% M/S of a roughly $4B channel/retail SSD market and the next biggest competitor was at ~10% M/S. From a market share perspective (in the retail segment, and all other segments), Samsung seems like the only supplier to safely assume they wouldn't lower pricing here unless the Flash market had loosened up in general. Furthermore, it would be safe to assume that in a shortage, any Flash supplier would not be selling their channel/retail SSDs at a lower price than they could command in other segments they serve. For Samsung, that would be a lot of Flash to have lower pricing than they could command elsewhere, with the large market share they have in every segment. Looking at Samsung's SSD models, the 850 EVO 1TB drive has been in the market for a while so the price tracking data is pretty solid. Hence, I picked the Samsung 850 EVO 1TB drive. So, let's take a look..

Pricing Tracker Data for Samsung EVO 1TB SSD (uses 48-layer TLC 3D-NAND according to the SSD Review):

The price increases on the 850 EVO 1TB SSD happens to coincide with the Flash shortage. This is of no surprise and should be expected. But take a look at the price declines since the August time frame. Why would any supplier lower their pricing when they can command higher pricing in a tight market? If the market is tight, I would rather be selling that Flash at a higher ASP; why keep lowering the price since August? Interesting.

Taking the price tracking data above, converting it to raw $/GB, and mapping against the supply/demand curve (I looked at a few analysts predictions and blended and used a "Meritage"), you can start to see an inverse correlation between the supply/demand ratio and the $/GB of PC-based SSDs. As a side note (and something I didn't look into), you would likely want to take the percentage above a balanced market and correlate that to the price % decline; this is because when you are oversupply, you should expect a continual price decline.

Actually, let me reverse (flip) the $/GB (see below chart) since there is an inverse relationship between the supply/demand ratio and the $/GB. This makes it easier for you to see the correlation. Just keep in mind that when you see the price moving up in the below chart, it's actually declining; I put the $/GB on the line to make it easier to keep your head around that. The below chart is the same as the chart above but with the inverse $/GB.

Ahhh, that's much easier to see the correlation. Based on the Q3'17 (last quarter) Supply/Demand Ratio, pricing and supply is improving. And that maps nicely to the actual price decline we saw on the EVO in Q3'17. Furthermore, November (Q4'17; this month) pricing of the EVO shows further actual declines to $0.29/GB and this matches the predicted S/D ratio improvement that is currently projected for Q4'17. Coincidence?

Based on the chart above, the corresponding correlations, and the analysts' predictions of supply/demand, I am expecting pricing of PC-based SSDs to approach $0.21/GB by the end of 2018, based on the expected 2018 YoY $/GB decline of 27%.

Enterprise SSD Pricing vs. Supply/Demand

Next, let's look at the Enterprise world. I'm going to do a similar chart below for the commonly provided 7% over-provisioned drives I am seeing in the Enterprise space today (e.g., 960GB, 1.92TB, 3.84TB). To do this, I simply take the PC-based SSDs and adjust the capacities by 7% (see another section below for more details on how/why). Keep in mind that this pricing is extrapolated off of the PC-equivalent drive and may not reflect whatever the market thinks it should be paying for the drive. Based on this, Enterprise SATA drives should be around $0.31/GB today. The trend will be the same as the PC-based trend but with an elevated $/GB.

Extrapolated Enterprise SSD Pricing vs Supply/Demand Ratio:

In summary

Today's SSD pricing: PC SSDs: $0.29/GB / Enterprise: $0.31/GB (extrapolated)

2018 (End) SSD pricing: PC SSDs: $0.21/GB / Enterprise: $0.23/GB (predicted)

SSD Vendors are lowering their SSD pricing in the channel/retail market as indicated by publicly-available pricing trackers; this has been going on for two to three months now. Mapping NAND Flash supply/demand ratios to these price declines shows a correlation between the two. Even though Q4'17 S/D ratios aren't historical yet, the current prediction maps closely to the actual Q4 pricing already being seen today. Based on predictions of where the Flash market supply/demand is heading, you should expect the price declines to continue and if your segment (non-channel/retail) hasn't seen these price declines, expect it soon after customers realize the shortage has already ended.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nand-flash-shortage-over-ssds-029gb-dropping-ryan-smith/?trackingId=gUeKOT6aZ55WiOh6MxuP1Q%3D%3D

If data is the new oil, is storage the new refinery?

Just as oil propelled @StandardOilCo. Inc. to a position of dominant #industrialpower in the late 1800s, #data is doing the same for a number of #technology firms today. Half of consumer online spending in the U.S. is controlled by @Amazon, a company that relies extensively on mining data so it knows what you want before your buy it. Nearly all revenue for digital advertising in America flows to two companies: @Facebook and @Google. The list goes on, but one constant is clear. Just as oil spawned the growth of many industries, data is reshaping the technology stack. From #robotics (think #autonomouscars) to the entire field of #datascience, a new era of innovation is underway. This is forcing any enterprise that handles data to innovate as well, and there may be no better example of this transformation than what is taking place in the storage layer, where the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence is refining data management in new ways. “Pick your domain; there’s going to be innovation across a lot of fronts, across a lot of traditional vertical industries that is all going to be about data and driven by data. And there has to be an infrastructure layer that actually enables it,” said Mike Cordano (pictured), president and chief operating officer at Western Digital Corp. What that infrastructure will look like over the next two to three years was the focus of discussion earlier this month, as Western Digital unveiled new storage technology that is designed to handle the explosion of data across the enterprise stack. Cordano stopped by theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, and spoke with host Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick) at the Western Digital Presents: Innovating to Fuel the Next Decade of Big Data event in San Jose, California. Frick also separately interviewed Janet George, fellow and chief data officer at Western Digital, and Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing devices, at Western Digital. They discussed key elements of the company’s new storage technology, enterprise trends that are shaping data management tools, the important role of AI and machine learning in bringing compute to data and potential innovations in the future.

https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/10/18/if-data-is-the-new-oil-is-storage-the-new-refinery-letdatathrive/

Microwave Tech Could Produce 40 TB Hard Drives in the Near Future

We’re all generating data faster than storage providers can keep up, and that problem is only going to get worse. On Friday, @WesternDigital announced a potential game changer that promises to expand the limits of traditional HDDs to up to 40TBs using a #microwavebasedwritehead, and the company says it will be available to the public in 2019.

While it seems every time you turn around someone is offering a theoretical “breakthrough,” most of us still have spinning platters in our PCs. There are a lot of reasons for this but Greg Schulz, a storage analyst and operator of StorageIO, tells Gizmodo that it all boils down to one thing, “economics.” Innovations in storing data on solid state drives aren’t coming fast enough to keep up with the amount of data we create, the cost of flash storage is still high, and manufacturing infrastructure needed for supply hasn’t kept pace with demand. Western Digital’s new approach, microwave-assisted magnetic recording (MAMR), can utilize the company’s existing production chain to cram a lot more storage onto a 3.5-inch disk.

In a technical overview, Western Digital says it has managed to overcome the biggest issue with traditional HDD drive storage—the size of the write head. These days, an average hard drive maxes out in the 10-14TB range. But by integrating a new write head, “a spin torque oscillator,” microwaves can create the energy levels necessary for copying data within a lower magnetic field than was ever previously possible. There’s a more thorough white paper for those who want to dive in.

For the average consumer, the most important thing to understand is that the industry wanted to cram more information into the same disk space, it hit a wall, and microwaves appear to have opened up new possibilities. According to Western Digital, MAMR has “the capability to extend areal density gains up to 4 Terabits per square inch.” By the year 2025, it hopes to be packing 40TBs into the same size drive it offers today.

While the idea of cramming more storage into the same technology we’ve been using for years may not sound like the most exciting development, it’s the best option we have right now. And this is only giving us a boost in capacity, not performance, that’s why hybrid systems are so important. Schulz points out that we are always relying on classic memory hierarchies to support demand. At the moment, cloud storage providers are using solid state memory, HDDs, and magnetic tapesimultaneously to keep up with demand. “There’s no such thing as an information or data recession, there’s more being generated every year,” he says. So we have to keep innovating on old, new, and future technologies while finding the optimal way to make them work together.

https://gizmodo.com/microwave-tech-could-produce-40-tb-hard-drives-in-the-n-1819457001

Western Digital starts shipping the world's first 14TB hard drive

Many component manufacturers compete to see who can release the fastest/smallest/largest technologies first, and the hard drive industry is no different. In January, @Seagate announced it is bringing 14TB and 16TB HDDs to market within the next 18 months, but @WesternDigital has beaten its rival to the punch by launching the world’s first 14TB hard drive.

Like other drives that feature massive capacities, the HGST Ultrastar Hs14 is filled with helium instead of regular air, which means less drag on the platters. It features 4thgeneration HelioSeal technology and uses 2nd-generation host-managed SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) on eight platters to hit that huge capacity.

HGST says the drive consumes just 5.2W at idle and 6.2W during operation. That works out at 60 percent lower idle watts per TB than an 8TB air-filled drive. It’s available in SATA (6Gbps) and SAS (12Gbps) models, and has a claimed 2.5 million hours MTBF (mean time between failures).

"Over 70 percent of the exabytes Western Digital ships into the capacity enterprise segment are on helium-based high-capacity drives and continue to support customers with outstanding reliability, performance and value Quality of Service (QoS)," said Mark Grace, Western Digital’s senior vice president of devices. "The TCO and reliability benefits of our HelioSeal platform are the foundation of our leadership in high-capacity enterprise storage."

While it’s true that PC game installs are getting bigger, these drives are aimed at enterprise customers such as cloud and hyperscale data centers, rather than regular consumers. No word yet on price, but expect it to be expensive.

The Hs14 is currently shipping to select OEMs and comes with a five-year limited warranty.

https://www.techspot.com/news/71272-western-digital-starts-shipping-world-first-14tb-hard.html

Entry Level Storage Market Global Potential Growth, Share, Demand and Analysis of Key Players- Research Forecasts to 2022

Entry Level Storage Market research report provides Emerging Market trends, Raw Materials Analysis, Manufacturing Process, regional outlook and comprehensive analysis on different market segments.  The Entry Level Storage Market provides detailed analysis of Market Overview, Market Drivers, Opportunities, Potential Application. Top Key Players of Entry Level Storage Market covered as: #WesternDigital Technologies, #KingstonTechnology, #SeagateTechnology, #CATechnologies, #HP, #IBM, #Toshiba, #Intel, #NETApp, #Cisco, #DellEMC #HitachiData Services Entry Level Storage industry drives A strong trend of R&D investments in food industries. Other growth drivers include the need to curtail costs, growth and increased use of shifting commodity prices, strength of private label brands and increased competition from players in Entry Level Storage market. Get Sample PDF @ http://www.360marketupdates.com/enquiry/request-sample/10936522 The Entry Level Storage market research report gives an overview of Entry Level Storage industries on by analysing various key segments of this market based on the product types, application, end-to-end industries and its scenario. Entry Level Storage Market split by Product Type: Direct Attached Storage, Cloud Attached Storage, Network Attached Storage, Other and Market split by Applications: Entertainment & Media, Public Sector, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Financial Services, Other The regional distribution of Entry Level Storage industries is across the globe are considered for this market analysis, the result of which is utilized to estimate the performance of the International market over the period from 2017 to forecasted year. Have Any Query? Ask Our Expert @ http://www.360marketupdates.com/enquiry/pre-order-enquiry/10936522 The Entry Level Storage market research report shed light on Foremost Regions: United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. Entry Level Storage Market in World, presents critical information and factual data about Entry Level Storage Industry, with an overall statistical study of this market based on market drivers, market limitations, and its future prospects. The widespread trends and opportunities are also taken into consideration in Entry Level Storage Market study. The product range of the Entry Level Storage industry is examined based on their production chain, pricing of products and the profit generated by them. Various regional markets are analysed in Entry Level Storage market research report and the production volume and efficacy for Entry Level Storage market across the world is also discussed.

http://www.satprnews.com/2017/09/20/entry-level-storage-market-global-potential-growth-share-demand-and-analysis-of-key-players-research-forecasts-to-2022/

Global Enterprise Storage Systems Market 2017: Dell, Buffalo, Isilon Systems, 3PAR, Hitachi Data Systems, LSI Corporation

Global Enterprise Storage Systems Market 2017-2022 QY Market Research include new Enterprise Storage Systems market research report "2016-2022 Report on Global Enterprise Storage Systems Market Competition, Status and Forecast, Market Size by Players, Regions, Type, Application" to its huge collection of research reports. This report on the global Enterprise Storage Systems market is highly useful as it covers all the aspects which are important in determining the future of this industry. The Enterprise Storage Systems report is collated by experienced analysts who have made use of their market intelligence to cover all basic and important data about the global Enterprise Storage Systems industry.The Enterprise Storage Systems market report makes use of tables, charts, graphs, maps, and statistics to present the data in the easiest to understand way. The Enterprise Storage Systems market report is a comprehensive analysis of the key factors impacting the global Enterprise Storage Systems industry. This Enterprise Storage Systems market report includes both the driving factors as well as the restraining factors that are influencing the market's performance positively and negatively, respectively. Top Manufacturers Analysis Of This Research Report, #IBM #HewlettPackardEnterprise #EMCCorporation #Dell #Buffalo #IsilonSystems #3PAR #HitachiDataSystems #LSICorporation #NetGear #OverlandStorage #Oracle #Panasas #SGICorporation #Intel #Seagate #IntegratedDeviceTechnology #WesternDigital The current trends shaping the global Enterprise Storage Systems market and how it will influence the Enterprise Storage Systems market in the future are also studied. In addition to this, the future opportunities within the Enterprise Storage Systems market that have the potential to help the market to expand are also given in the Enterprise Storage Systems report.

http://www.openpr.com/news/708983/Global-Enterprise-Storage-Systems-Market-2017-Dell-Buffalo-Isilon-Systems-3PAR-Hitachi-Data-Systems-LSI-Corporation.html

Lexar And Tegile Acquisitions

Merger and acquisition activity in the digital storage industry continues as buyers jockey to fill holes in their offerings and sellers try to cash in or recapitalize their products or spin out non-core product offerings. This was the case as #WesternDigital acquired acquired flash memory system company #Tegile and Chinese flash company #Longsys acquired the #Lexar brand from #Micron. Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: #WDC) and #Tegile Systems (“Tegile”) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Tegile, a leading provider of flash and persistent-memory storage solutions for enterprise data center applications, will be acquired by Western Digital. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Advertisement  Tegile has been a pioneer in flash storage systems since 2012. With its IntelliFlash™ architecture, Tegile has pioneered a comprehensive flash storage platform. Tegile will bring to Western Digital over 1,700 new customers, a profitable product portfolio, and an experienced team with a proven ability to deliver value to customers. UNICEF USAVoiceThe Best Way To Help Children Recovering From Hurricane Harvey Now The Tegile acquisition joins several other flash memory acquisitions over the years and represents another effort by the company to move beyond storage components such as hard disk drives, flash memory and solid state drives and into the enterprise storage systems business. WD current storage systems include their active archive solution as well as data center flash products. Micron has been trying to sell its consumer flash memory business under the Lexar brand for many months, and recently Chinese comsumer flash memory company, Longsys, offered to buy the trade mark and branding rights. This acquisition provides assurance to existing Lexar customers that the solutions and support they have come to expect from Lexar branded products will continue to be available. Additionally, the market reach and product breadth provided by Longsys promises to expand the Lexar customer experience into new market segments and geographies.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2017/09/10/lexar-and-tegile-acquisitions/?c=0&s=trending#37df20951365

Storage breakthrough: World's biggest microSD card crams in a massive 400GB of data

#WesternDigital has unveiled what it says is the world's highest-capacity #microSD card -- one that crams 400GB of storage into your smartphone.

The company says its 400GB #SanDisk Ultra #microSDXC #UHSI card is the highest-capacity microSD card for use in mobile devices.

The card can hold up to 40 hours of Full HD video and can transfer data at up to 100MBps: at that speed, users could move 1,200 3.5MB photos per minute over USB 3.0. The card, which Western Digital is aiming at Android smartphone and tablet users, comes with a ten-year warranty and a US retail price of $249.99.

Western Digital said its memory technology, design, and production processes allowed for more bits per die, enabling it to push the microSD card capacity up again.

The capacity of microSD cards had grown rapidly: only two years ago, Western Digital's biggest microSD card stood at 200GB, which cost $399 at launch. The year before that, the state of the art for SanDisk was a 128GB card for $199. When the microSD card format was first launched in 2004, it had 128MB of capacity.

"We anticipate that storage needs will only continue to grow as people continue to expect more sophisticated features on their devices and desire higher quality content," Jeff Janukowicz, research vice president at IDC said. "We estimate mobile device users worldwide will install over 150 billion applications alone this year, which require a ton of memory on all of our favorite devices."

http://www.zdnet.com/article/storage-breakthrough-worlds-biggest-microsd-card-crams-in-a-massive-400gb-of-data/

VMworld Sneak-Peak with vSAN and Western Digital

If I were a gambling man, I’d place my bet on #HCI winning the infrastructure race over the next year. For those of you that haven’t started down the #hyperconverged path, then #VMworld is the perfect time to learn more … and what better place to make a bet than Vegas! This year, we at #WesternDigital will highlight how we’re working closely with the #vSAN team to help more of you modernize your data center. Three Highlights You Shouldn’t Miss Newest Flash Technology Ready on Day 0 for vSAN From PCIe/NVMe™, SAS and SATA flash and all the way to innovative SMR, Helium and air-filled HDDs, we offer a broad selection of certified drives for vSAN®, HCI and cloud solutions. You’ll find capacities ranging from 300GB to the world first 12TB[1] HDD, and flash devices up to 7.68TB with the capability of performing up to 1.2M Read IOPS per device. Visit us at our VMworld booth to learn how these devices can be used in your next server refresh to enable an HCI solution powered by vSAN. Our experts will help you find the best performing and most cost-efficient device for your workload and software stack. Performance Results with Proven vSAN Devices and Configurations (Spoiler Alert: HCI is Fast!) Second, you can speak to our storage experts on how we test hyper-converged solutions like vSAN using our performance testbeds in our Data Propulsion Lab™ to bring definitive data to vSAN administrators and ReadyNode design teams. Learn more about our testing learnings here. We have worked closely with various server OEM companies, like Lenovo™, HPE and Cisco®, to deliver proven reference architectures and vSAN ReadyNodes™. At VMworld, we will talk about three vSAN cluster testbeds from different server companies. One example is the configuration below using Lenovo System X 3650 M5 series servers and various SAS SSDs from our Ultrastar® family. In this configuration we tested the delivery of over 650,000 Read IOPS on a 4-node cluster with 4 disk groups per node and over 1 million Read IOPS on an 8-node cluster with 2 disk groups per node[2].  Fig 1: One of the three vSAN Clusters in the Data Propulsion Lab vSAN Test Bed – over 1 million Read IOPS on an 8-node cluster Another example, below, is an all-NMVe vSAN configuration. We’re proud to be a leader in NVMe technology. Just last week, we received the PCIe NVMe SSDs award at the Flash Memory Summit, voted by IT professionals from around the world. NVMe is a disruptive technology, and VMworld will be a great opportunity to understand how it can greatly benefit your vSAN or HCI solution. In our booth, you’ll be able to see an all-flash, all-NVMe -powered vSAN solutions delivering 61TB of all-NVMe flash capacity on a 2U unit!  Fig 2: One of the vSAN-Driven Solutions using HGST PCIe NVMe Drives on show at VMworld Enabling Cloud to Edge with vSAN Lastly, come see how our products and solutions are used all the way from edge devices and data centers to the public clouds. Whether it is our NVMe SSDs that deliver performance and low latency optimized for hyperscale data centers and cloud workloads, our CloudSpeed™ II SATA SSDs with superior performance or high-capacity helium HDDs – our solutions are heavily relied on by cloud providers as an essential part of their infrastructure to run VMware Cloud, vSAN and ESXi.
https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2017/08/23/vmworld-sneak-peak-vsan-western-digital/

Micron's new storage division lead is third former SanDisk recruit

#Micron has replaced its storage business unit VP, @DarrenThomas, with a former #SanDisk exec, @AnandJayapalan. Micron's recently appointed CEO @SanjayMehrotra, who arrived in April, was SanDisk's CEO when it was acquired by #WesternDigital, staying on at WD for a time and then joining Micron to succeed @MarkDurkan, who retired. Mehrotra appointed former SanDisk SVP of corporate engineering Jeff VerHeul to be SVP of Non-Volatile Engineering in June. Sumit Sadana was hired as EVP and chief business officer also in June and he is a SanDisk alumnus too, having been EVP, chief strategy officer and general manager for Enterprise Solutions. Now Jayapalan makes three ex-SanDisk hires by Mehrotra. Jayapalan was SanDisk's VP marketing for Enterprise Storage Solutions, joining in 2013 from Blackberry. At Micron his remit is leading and growing Micron's solid-state storage business, and addressing opportunities in large market segments like cloud, enterprise and client compute. He reports to Sadana. Micron's announcement makes no mention of Darren Thomas, who joined to run the storage unit in 2014. Does the Jayapalan hiring signal a new direction for Micron's storage division? Mehrotra is selling off all or part of the Lexar consumer products unit at Micron. The storage business unit has a deal with Excelero to use its NVMesh software with its SolidScale flash arrays and has invested in that startup. What has piqued our curiosity for severtal months is Micron's relative quietness and slowness in bringing its QuantX 3D XPoint products to market; a strong contrast with Intel, which is pushing ahead with Optane-branded 3D XPoint gear. Micron and Intel jointly developed 3D XPoint, the faster-than-NAND but slower-than-DRAM solid-state non-volatile memory tech. We should expect renewed vigour from Micron in developing and marketing enterprise SSD products, possibly featuring additional 3D layers and QLC (4bits/cell) technology as well as a QuantX push. Let's watch and wait to see what Mehrotra's men do next

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/08/22/micron_changes_one_storage_bu_top_gun_for_another/

Video Surveillance Storage System Market Professional Survey Report 2017

Global #VideoSurveillance Storage System Market Research Report 2017 to 2022 presents an in-depth assessment of the Video Surveillance Storage System Market including enabling technologies, key trends, market drivers, challenges, standardization, regulatory landscape, deployment models, operator case studies, opportunities, future roadmap, value chain, ecosystem player profiles and strategies. The report also presents forecasts for Video Surveillance Storage System Market investments from 2017 till 2022. This study answers several questions for stakeholders, primarily which market segments they should focus upon during the next five years to prioritize their efforts and investments. These stakeholders include #VideoSurveillance Storage System Market manufacturers such as #Quantum Corporation (US), #DellEMC Corporation (US), #WesternDigital Corporation (US), #HewlettPackard Company (US), #Avigilon Corporation (CA), #Cisco (US), #Buffalo Americas, Inc. (US), #Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd (CN), #Seagate Technology (US), #NetApp (US). Primary sources are mainly industry experts from core and related industries, and suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, service providers, and organizations related to all segments of the industry’s supply chain. The bottom-up approach was used to estimate the global market size of Video Surveillance Storage System Market based on end-use industry and region, in terms of value. With the data triangulation procedure and validation of data through primary interviews, the exact values of the overall parent market, and individual market sizes were determined and confirmed in this study.

http://www.tradecalls.org/2017-08-09-video-surveillance-storage-system-market

New report shares details about the flash memory market increasing CAGR 11.37% from 2017 to 2021

The latest trend gaining momentum in the market is Increasing demand for next-generation memory. The demand for fast, economical, and high scalable memory solutions is increasing exponentially across the globe

The following companies as the key players in the Global Flash Memory Market: #Samsung, #Toshiba, #WesternDigital, and #SKHynix. 

Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: #ADATA, #Cactus, #Delkin, #EyeFi, #Hoodman, #KINGMAX, #Lexar ( #Micron Consumer Products Group), #PNYTechnologies, #Sony, #Starline International Group, #Strontium, and #Intel.

This results in the increase in the demand for the next-generation memory solutions such as ferroelectric random access memory ( #FeRAM ), magnetoresistive random access memory ( #MRAM ), and phase-change memory ( #PCM ). These memories are required as the amount of data generated that needs to be stored and efficiently analyzed is increasing exponentially.”

About Flash Memory

Flash memory is a non-volatile memory. Dr. Fujio Masuoka invented the flash memory when he worked for Toshiba in the 1980s.

Flash memory penetrated the semiconductor market by early 1990s. Flash memory evolved from erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) and electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM).

Flash memory retains the stored data for an extended period of time even when the flash-equipped device is powered on or off.

According to the report, one of the major drivers for this market is High demand for rugged and robust storage devices. Rugged devices are meant to be used in harsh environmental conditions.

The rugged devices withstand and function at extreme high or low temperatures, without affecting the performance. Attributes like long battery life and being lightweight make them convenient to be integrated into the commercial and industrial segments.

https://www.whatech.com/market-research/it/356083-new-report-shares-details-about-the-flash-memory-market-increasing-cagr-11-37-from-2017-to-2021

Why Seagate's Big Earnings Miss Isn't Terrible News for Western Digital

If you're going to refrain from making big investments to up your exposure to a new technology that's gradually eating away at your core market, it's important to at least have a very strong competitive position in that core market. #Seagate Technology PLC (STX) has failed to do that, and together with the steady cannibalization of large portions of that core market (hard drives) by a newer technology (SSDs), this has left the company in a much tougher spot than archrival #WesternDigital Corp. (WDC) . On Tuesday morning, Seagate reported June quarter (fiscal fourth quarter) revenue of $2.41 billion (down 9% annually) and adjusted EPS of $0.65, easily missing consensus analyst estimates of $2.56 billion and $0.98. And on its earnings call, the company guided for September quarter revenue of $2.5 billion to $2.6 billion, below a $2.71 billion consensus and implying a 9% annual decline at the midpoint. Seagate added that while it expects revenue to grow sequentially in the seasonally strong December quarter, it's "not on a trajectory" to hit prior calendar 2017 EPS guidance of $4.50.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/14242077/1/why-seagate-s-big-earnings-miss-isn-t-terrible-news-for-western-digital.html