How SSDs are shaping the future of new age computing?
According to Western Digital, people were not only buying new PCs but also upgrading their existing ones.
Western Digital is one of the most popular brands when it comes to storage devices. The company has been creating drives for years now. While most of us have gotten used to having chunky hard drives on our PCs, the future is clearly NVMe SSDs. The hard drives that most of our PCs and laptops have are slow and have a greater possibility of crashing after a couple of years. On the other hand, SSDs bring a significant boost in performance and can run for a lot longer.
In the times of COVID, the demands for new laptops increased as most of us had to stay at our home. But according to Western Digital, people were not only buying new PCs but also upgrading their existing ones. Here's what the Khalid Wani - Director Sales, Western Digital India had to say about COVID impact, SSDs, and NVMe drives:
How did COVID-19 impact Western Digital’s business?
People are quickly adapting to new ways in life. On the back of various policy initiatives, and mostly as everything has become digital today from gaming, education, meetings, streaming, to eCommerce. This has resulted in huge data deluge. Data is at the core of a virtual or digital world. The current environment has resulted in a colossal amount of data creation and consumption, whether, at a consumer level or an enterprise. As a result good demand for our products- since we have a wide portfolio cutting across consumer, professional as well as enterprise.
Are people upgrading their PCs even in the times of COVID?
Absolutely! With most of us working from home, studying online or gaming for hours, we are using our machines for several hours and our lives quite literally depend on them. Thus, making it extremely crucial to have a smooth working PC. However, with tight budgets during these extraordinary times, people and businesses are looking at budget-friendly and effective solutions to improved performance.
Replacing the hard drive with solid state drive (SSD) is one of the easiest and quickest ways to boost your PC performance.
Western Digital offers a plethora of reliable solutions to help upgrade a slow working PC. One of the top options is WD Blue™️ SN550 NVMe™️ SSD that offers super-fast speeds. However, if your PC motherboard doesn’t support NVMe technology you should definitely go for WD Blue 3D NAND SATA SSD. The SSDs are available in capacities of up to 1TB and 4TB, respectively.
Have you seen a surge in the sale of SSDs lately? Or people still prefer buying conventional hard drives?
Basis of the latest report by CMR, both internal as well as external SSD markets have witnessed an exponential growth when compared to CY2018. Market transition is beginning to happen. Gaming is one important factor, which has grown the internal SSD margins, the other being PC upgrades.
The demand for high performing PC is increasing and consumers are ready to shed extra on important components like SSD. There are many factors like growing internet penetration, increasing awareness among consumers about the emergence of novel technologies, which are primary reasons for this growth.
Both SSD and hard drives are meant for different use cases, if the need is to back up a lot of data and speed is not a primary requirement, then hard drives are a better option and cheaper too. But if the main requirement is performance and speed then SSD is the best option.
What do people look for, more storage or faster transfer speeds?
As I mentioned, the requirement depends on the use cases. If you are a gamer, a photographer or a content creator, you would want speed and performance. However, if the objective is to back-up data, then you might want to a bigger capacity storage driver at a more affordable rate.
At Western Digital, our top priority is to enable consumers and professionals to master their digital lives by enabling them with devices that provide enormous storage capacity and fast transfer speeds. We have always addressed the ever-changing market needs by providing a full portfolio of compelling, high-quality storage capacity with customer-focused innovation, high efficiency, flexibility and speed.
SSDs bring a significant boost in performance when compared to HDDs. But do NVMe drives offer an edge over the SATA SSDs?
Yes, you are right. NVMe is a newer and much faster technology as compared to SATA.
Should people use both SSDs and HDDs together?
Yes, they can. As both these drivers, serve different purposes.
Do external SSDs make any sense for the normal consumer?
Absolutely it does. An SSD be it for gaming usage, content creation or just regular day-to-day work offers great performance and transfer speeds. For example, our SanDisk Extreme PRO® portable SSD is ideal for those who require large storage capacities and high read and write speed. It offers a lightning-fast transfer speeds to up to 1050 MB/s letting you move files faster and edit right from the drive.
In Western Digital’s vision, what is the future of NVMe or SSDs in general?
As our lives increasingly become digital and we demand more from our PCs, SSDs will become more mainstream. As SSDs- SATA or NVMe- are more reliable and offer better speeds. NVMe is a new technology and much faster, than SATA based SSDs. If you see, today more and more PCs are coming with NVMe slots, so the change has started to happen.