Demand for SSDs in PCs gonna boom through 2017

Global shipments of solid state drives (SSD) in PCs are set to rise by a factor of seven by 2017, allowing them to claim more than one-third of the market for PC storage solutions by that time, IHS iSuppli said in its new report. SSD shipments in PCs will rise to 227 million units in 2017, up more than 600% from 31 million in 2012, IHS predicted. Meanwhile, shipments of PC hard disk drives (HDD) will decline to 410 million in 2017, down 14% from 475 million in 2012.

The divergent outlook for the two products will allow SSDs to climb and claim 36% of the PC storage market in 2017, up from just 6% in 2012, IHS said. At the same time, HDDs will see their long-term dominance in PCs erode, with their share falling to 64% in 2017, down from a commanding 94% in 2012.

For SSDs, the major factors driving growth in 2013 will be ultrabooks and other ultrathin notebook PCs, especially as Intel's upcoming Haswell processors bring about a robust combination of performance and efficiency for the superthin computers, said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS, in a statement. "In the coming years, ultrabooks and ultrathins - combined with appealing touch-screen displays and convertible form factors - are likely to become more compelling as the machines attempt to lure consumers away from smartphones and tablets, boosting demand for SSDs used in these systems," Zhang continued.

The SSD space includes the cache SSD segment where NAND flash is used alongside a HDD, as well as a separate segment in which NAND flash is embedded on top of an HDD in an integrated, hybrid form factor.