I worked for StorageTek at the turn of the millenium, during the Tape Wars.  EMC was saying “Tape is dead.” StorageTek claimed otherwise, and their steady tape business pretty much disproved it.  But everyone knew that disk was the future. The question was when. 

Fast forward ten years.  Tape is still not dead,  but its role in the industry has changed in unexpected ways. Content growth has transformed the storage media landscape.  There’s more to store for all media types, enabled largely by affordable, ubiquitous disk.

SSD is now talked about as the future of storage.  But when is that future and what will it look like?

Amara’s Law states that “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”  SSD, like disk storage before it, will follow Roy Amara’s law to the letter.

SSD is going to transform storage device technology far beyond simply swapping out disk drives for solid state devices at the top of the storage media chain.  SSD changes the relationship between processors, memory and storage.  It will redefine the disk drive and it’s role and expand the market for storage.

Eventually.

Meanwhile, disk drives continue to drive storage solutions more than any other storage medium.  SSDs are gradually approaching prime time.  It’s hard, slow work that involves incremental product improvement, standards development and industry coordination and cooperation.  It also will include a few steps backward in between the bigger steps forward. 

Give SSD time to fulfill its destiny.

 Photo courtesy of boingboing.net