What about SSDs
Mobile growthThe European mobile market, represented mainly by drives used in laptops, is reckoned to be 22m units in 2009, down from 2008's 26m units. Broadening horizons, Toshiba holds a commanding position in the automotive segment - where 2.5in drives are pre-fitted into luxury cars, accounting for more than a million units per year - and has the 1.8in form factor, which it pioneered, pretty much to itself.
However, the biggest growth in this segment, according the company, is from the burgeoning external storage segment. Considered in a worldwide context, 2.5in drives account for around 50 per cent external storage sales, usually housed in USB-powered caddies. That figure is set to rise to around 75 per cent by 2010 (30m units) and we'll see the big five players put considerable resources behind gaining market share. Looking farther afield and somewhat an aside, the small-form factor drives' presence in consoles doesn't hurt, either.
Toshiba doesn't see flash-based USB sticks as the obvious competitor in the external storage market, citing the old cost-per-GB and capacity arguments.
What about SSDs?
Spindle-based 2.5in drives may be big on capacity and relatively cheap on price, but we've seen the inexorable rise of SSDs in 2009, to the extent where it's possible to buy a 40GB model for £75. We asked Larsson and Walsh to explain why Toshiba isn't putting the same vim and vigour into promulgating SSDs. Explaining that SSDs won't even become remotely mainstream until capacities rise and prices fall - which they will, of course - the GB/£ advantage of mechanical storage will always win out. In essence, the capacity goalpost will change but so will users' storage habits.
SSDs only make real sense for Toshiba's DNM division in the enterprise space, they said, where high I/O bandwidth is important to keep virtualised servers fed with data. Looking at the bigger picture, Toshiba has a division tasked with handling SSD development, as it already makes the NAND for a number of high-profile drives, and what'll be really interesting is how the two divisions fight it over the middle-capacity ground.
Toshiba's acquisition of Fujitsu gives it a top-to-bottom line-up for 2.5in drives and puts the company in second place for global shipment, some 10 percentage points behind Western Digital. We'll be seeing larger capacities rather than faster spindle speeds, as upcoming USB 3.0 removes some of the present bottleneck for external models, and it won't be long until you can slip a 2TB drive into your back pocket.
