The 20 Coolest Storage Component Vendors: The 2021 Storage 100
These 20 storage component vendors give software and data the right base on which to operate.
While storage software defines the services a system provides to its users, hardware and software components define the systems on which the storage software runs.
Processors, SSDs and hard drives, memory and controllers provide the right mix of performance and reliability needed to build storage infrastructures, and these companies make sure that happens.
As part of CRN’s 2021 Storage 100, here are 20 component makers developing the parts used to build cutting-edge storage solutions.
AMD
Lisa Su
President, CEO
AMD is best-known as one of the world’s largest processor companies. While it is most often thought of in terms of servers and PCs, the company also has a strong business in storage. AMD EPYC Embedded 3000 series processors, for instance, are used to develop software-defined storage and networkattached storage offerings.
ATTO
Tim Klein
Co-Founder, President, CEO
ATTO specializes in network and storage connectivity and infrastructure technologies for data-intensive computing environments. It provides hardware and software components to the biggest vendors in storage with connectivity to all storage interfaces including Fibre Channel, SAS, SATA, iSCSI, Ethernet, NVMe and Thunderbolt.
Cisco Systems
Chuck Robbins
Chairman, CEO
Cisco is one of the top providers of storage networking technology based on its expertise in Ethernet, Fibre Channel and SDWAN. Among its storage products are software for analyzing SANs, NVMe and NVMe-over-Fibre Channel networking technologies, and technology for nondisruptive SAN migration.
CRU
Randal Barber
President, CEO
CRU makes removable storage devices for government and private businesses, as well as a line specifically targeting the digital cinema industry. CRU’s storage devices include flash and spinning drives and the enclosures needed to create rugged and durable Trade Agreements Act-compliant removable storage devices to secure sensitive data.
Intel
Pat Gelsinger
CEO
As the IT industry looks for faster performance from storage, many vendors and solution providers are looking to Intel Optane persistent memory technology, which sits between SSDs and DRAM performance-wise, making it a more common part of memory-based storage tiers. Intel also develops SSDs as well as processors that go into storage devices.
Kingston
John Tu
Co-Founder, CEO
Kingston, the world’s largest independent memory product manufacturer, develops SSDs, USB flash drives, memory modules, memory cards and card readers, and embedded storage. Kingston earlier this year became more business-focused with the sale of its HyperX gaming division to HP Inc.
Kioxia
Toshiaki Fujikawa
President, CEO, Kioxia America
Kioxia, which until October 2019 was known as Toshiba Memory, continues to be a world leader in memory and SSD technologies, including SLC NAND flash memory, NAND with integrated controllers, and 3-D BiCS Flash technology, along with enterprise, data center and client SSDs.
Longsys
Huabao Cai
Chairman
Longsys is a developer of NAND flash memory technologies, custom memory chips, and the storage software and hardware. It has two primary product lines: Foresee, a line of embedded storage devices, and Lexar, a consumer-focused storage brand the company acquired from Micron in 2017.
Micron Technology
Sanjay Mehrotra
President, CEO
Micron Technology manufactures a broad portfolio of memory chips and modules including DRAM, NAND and NOR flash and 3-D XPoint memory, along with memory cards for mission-important applications and SSDs for client, enterprise, cloud and industrial use.
NGD Systems
Nader Salessi
Founder, Chairman, CEO
NGD Systems develops high-performance, high-capacity NVMe-based SSDs using a 14nm ASIC-based controller with capacities of up to 64 TB. It also develops an intelligent storage platform that lets users create, manage and execute applications in its SSD storage offerings.
Nvidia
Jensen Huang
Founder, President, CEO
Nvidia is known primarily as a developer of graphics processing units. However, in 2020 it vaulted into a major provider of technology for the storage industry when it closed its acquisition of Mellanox and unveiled acquisitions of microprocessor developer Arm and object storage software developer SwiftStack.
Other World Computing
Larry O’Connor
Founder, CEO
Other World Computing started developing memory upgrades to early Apple computers but now offers a wide range of memory and external storage products. Its line includes MacDrive for accessing Mac disks on Windows, MacSales memory and storage upgrades for Macs, SoftRAID RAID utility and more.
Radian Memory Systems
Mike Jadon
Co-Founder, CEO
Flash storage technology developer Radian Memory Systems offers NVMe flash-based SSDs and NVRAM-based SSDs for data center workloads. The company also develops Symphonic CFM (cooperative flash management) to add intelligence to flash storage operations.
Samsung
Kinam Kim
Vice Chairman, CEO, Device Solutions Division
Samsung’s semiconductor business builds NAND flash memory used in developing highperformance, high-density data storage technologies for PCs, enterprise storage, mobile devices and SSDs. The company introduced the Samsung PM1733, its first enterprise-class dual-port SSD supporting PCIe Gen4.
Seagate Technology
Dave Mosley
CEO
Seagate is best-known as a top hard drive and SSD developer but recently has invested in software and storage systems. Its Lyve is an edge-to-cloud mass storage platform that captures unstructured data in a storage infrastructure that ties the data center and cloud to the edge in a vendor-agnostic fashion.
Silicon Motion
Wallace Kuo
President, CEO
Silicon Motion develops NAND flash controllers for SSDs and other solid state storage devices. Its specialized processor ICs manage NAND components for high-performance storage offerings used in data centers, PCs, smartphones and commercial and industrial applications.
Super Micro Computer
Charles Liang
CEO
Supermicro develops high-performance server and storage systems and components for data center, cloud computing, enterprise IT, big data, high-performance compute and embedded markets. Those are sold either direct to business users or to system builders who then add their own value and brand.
Swissbit
Silvio Muschter
CEO
Swissbit manufactures storage and embedded IoT technology for demanding applications. It offers SSDs with PCIe and SATA interfaces, as well as CompactFlash, USB flash drives, SD and micro SD memory cards, and managed NAND BGAs, some of which include security for embedded IoT applications.
Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage
Akihiko Oma
President, CEO
Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage has been focused on the semiconductor and hard disk drive business since it spun off its flash memory and SSD business in 2019 to a new company, Kioxia. It develops enterprise, mobile and consumer hard drives, including drives optimized for cloud-scale capacity.
Western Digital
David Goeckeler
CEO
Western Digital is a top hard drive and SSD manufacturer with a wide range of drives for PC, data center and embedded use. Through its Western Digital Capital organization, it has been investing in the storage industry with companies like Silk, Pivot3, Qumulo, Excelero and WekaIO in its portfolio.