The 10 Best Selling SSDs Of 2013

Solid Drive Leaders

Deployment of solid-state drive has increased tremendously in the past year. That trend is expected to continue as prices fall, durability improves and the need for power efficiency and ever-faster data access rises more than attendance numbers at Fenway Park. Here's a list of the top 10 best-selling solid state drives of 2013, according to U.S. technology distributors, as reported by the NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based market-research firm that provides data from leading technology distributors. It's part of the CRN Test Center's Storage Week 2014.

10. IBM

Not often considered first as a supplier of storage media, IBM trails the field in SSD unit sales with just 1.2 percent of the overall market share. And as slender as its slice of the SSD pie was last year, the company's share was down by more than 0.1 percent from the prior year. Big Blue offers enterprise-grade SAS and SATA SSDs with capacities between 128 GB and 800 GB, as well as a series of flash-based storage arrays.

9. OCZ Storage Solutions

Capturing just 1.7 percent of 2013 SSD sales, OCZ Storage Solutions, now a part of Toshiba, saw its market share drop from 7.5 percent in 2012, a loss of 5.8 percentage points from one year to the next, NPD Group reported. OCZ manufactures enthusiast- and performance-grade SATA SSDs between 120 GB and 480 GB, and PCIe-based workstation accelerators that deliver as much as 960 GB.

8. Seagate

Seagate SSDs captured 1.7 percent of sales in 2013, placing it in a virtual tie with OCZ, which trailed by hundredths of a percent. But unlike Toshiba, which had a significant market share and lost it, Seagate didn't enter the SSD market until May 2013, when the magnetic-drive pioneer launched its first consumer- and enterprise-grade SSD products. Seagate offers SATA and SAS SSDs with capacities between 100 GB and 800 GB, and hybrids up to 4 TB.

7. EMC

With a statistically flat market share year-over-year, EMC sold about 2.8 percent of the SSDs in 2013 and in 2012. The company offers a series of PCIe-based SSD storage for server caching and acceleration. Last year, EMC unveiled its first all-SSD storage array, leveraging technology it acquired along with XtremeIO a year earlier.

6. Kingston Technology

Despite a breadth of products that's about as extensive as it gets, 2013 SSD market share of memory giant Kingston Technology slipped in 2013 to 2.9 percent of total unit sales. That's a 0.3 percent decrease from a year-ago mark of 3.2 percent, and precipitated a drop in rank from fifth to sixth. The company offers a range of SSD capacities and price points aimed at the consumer, business, enterprise, system builder and enthusiast.

5. Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard more than doubled its SSD market share in 2013 from the prior year. The company in 2012 commanded just 2.3 percent of the SSD market, according to NPD. But by 2013, its share had shot up by 2.9 percent to a high of 5.2 percent of total sales. HP SSDs come in a variety of capacities and form factors and from a variety of OEMs.

4. Crucial Technology

Crucial Technology SSDs dropped a full 3 percentage points in market share from 2012 to 2013, yet still managed to remain in fourth place in total units purchased. We expect it had to do with price. Ranging from $99 for 128 GB to $530.99 for a terabyte of solid-state storage, Crucial's prices are among the lowest of any leading manufacturer. The company last year supplied 6.3 percent of the nation's SSDs. The year before, it sold 9.3 percent.

3. Samsung

With four of the year's 10 best-selling SSD products is Samsung, which took third place in overall unit sales in 2013. The company more than quadrupled its share in a single year, growing from 4.4 percent in 2012 to 19.3 percent in 2013. In the four years since selling under its own brand, Samsung SSDs have captured nearly one-fifth of the U.S. market share. Its SATA and mSATA drives vary in size between 32 GB and 512 GB. Best sellers included its 120-GB 840 Series and 128- and 256-GB 840 Pro Series drives.

2. SanDisk

In second place with 20.9 percent of the U.S. market is SanDisk, which more than doubled its 2012 market share of 8.7 percent. Like the sixth-place finisher, the line of SanDisk SSDs is broad, and includes SATA, SAS and PCIe models for consumers and enterprise, as well as those designed for system acceleration and for servicing the needs of OEMs. The 25-year veteran SanDisk had three of the top 10 best-selling SSDs in the United States in 2013, including the country's top seller, its 512-GB model X100.

1. Intel

Still the leader in SSD sales in the U.S. is Intel, but its lead this year has slipped significantly. With 52.7 percent of the unit sales in 2012, Intel in 2013 dropped to 31.6 percent, a difference of more than 21 percentage points. Still, compared to its closest rival, the SSD-industry pioneer enjoys a lead of more than 10 percentage points, and Intel SSDs find their way into 50 percent more devices. The company offers 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch SSDs for data center, professional and consumer applications, and had three of the year's 10 best-sellers.

Be sure to find all of the CRN Test Center's Storage Week 2014 coverage at CRN.com.