Memory specialist Hypertec has launched its solid state drive (SSD) range of products, which it has claimed offers faster data access and greater reliability as well as reduced space and carbon footprints.

The technology’s efficiency makes it highly marketable as sustainability and power consumption are considered almost as important as raw computing power, said Hypertec’s managing director Lianne Denness.

“We are going to see massive demand for this technology in datacentres and any industries where high levels of usage create demand for fast access,” said Denness. “Banks and financial institutions are crying out for this.”

Industrial applications for the technology should prove to be another big growth market for SSDs, she predicted, because its lack of moving parts means the technology can be deployed in environments where traditional hard disks would be fatally damaged.

Denness’s claims were endorsed by datacentre guru Steve Bowden, chief technology officer at IBM’s service technology group.

“The overwhelming concern among corporations that run datacentres these days is to cut back on the power consumption and the space taken up,” he said.

The new hardware technology could be a good complement to virtualisation, he agreed. “There is also concern about how to cut emissions,” he conceded, but that tends to go hand in hand with the price of resources. “The outcome is the same; enterprises will readily invest in technology that needs fewer resources.”

Consultant Una Du Noyer, head of infrastructure engineering at Capgemini, advised resellers to follow the money, because funding for green technology will come from more than one source.

“The whole green issue is very high on corporate agendas at the moment. Corporate social responsibility is an obsession because reputational risk can affect a company’s share price,” she said.

Funding for green technology, such as SSD, is as likely to come from a corporate social responsibility budget as from the IT department.

In the short term, there could be a supply shortage, Denness warned. Samsung, which supplies the flash technology rebadged by Hypertec, has not made its SSD available.

The supply shortage will force up prices initially, warned Denness, but that should create a high-margin corporate market.