Ultrabook and tablet uptake sparks SSD boom

SSD shipments into tablets and ultrabooks trebles in first quarter of 2013

Shipments of solid-state drives (SSD) virtually doubled in Q1 as the technology's usage within ultrabooks and tablets continues to boom.

According to market watcher IHS, SSD shipments hit 11.5 million in the first quarter of 2013.

Although this figure is dwarfed by the 135.7 million hard disks dives shipped, shipments of the electronic disks with no moving mechanical parts were up 92 per cent on Q1 2012.

This was thanks in part to the technology's adoption by ultrabook and tablet manufacturers, IHS said.

SSD shipments to ultrathin/ultrabook PCs and tablets both trebled year on year to 5.9 million units and 1.6 million, respectively, in Q1.

The market watcher said SSD shipments rose in virtually every segment they are present, including desktop PCs, notebooks and the industrial market for applications such as aerospace, automotive and medical electronics.

"The SSD market enjoyed strong results in the first quarter as both the consumer and enterprise markets ramped up their utilisation of machines that made use of the drives," said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS.

"Most notably, SSD attach rates climbed in ultrathin/ultrabook PCs where SSDs are the de facto storage medium, and also in PC tablets where productivity options differentiate them from media tablets."

IHS highlighted Samsung, Intel, SanDisk, Seagate and HGST as among the main beneficiaries of the SSD boom. SSD newbie LSI staged a "strong debut" in the space after shipping 400,000 PCI Express SSDs in the first four months of the year, it added.