The battle for the largest, fastest hard drives is taking place. Samsung, Intel, SanDisk, Toshiba and Micron are all advancing the Solid State Hard Drive (SSD) space with innovative technologies. New terminology including 3D Xpoint and 3D TLC NAND are some of the phrases you might hear. With these advances one can expect to see storage space rise, speeds increase and prices drop on SSD technology.
Who doesn't want more storage? Data storage needs for both business and personal use is on the rise prompting larger, affordable solutions to come to the forefront. Cloud storage addresses some of these requirements, but for those of you who depend on data access speeds, having the data local offers a better solution. Some may even have concerns with the security of storing sensitive data on the cloud, using the local network to handle file sharing. As larger, faster hard drives hit the market, considerations should be made to find a scenario that best matches your goals.

Over the past few years' SSD have continued to appear on consumer devices, but increasingly, servers will also use SSDs so that storage performance can keep pace with the development of server processors. This is something with which traditional hard disk drives are struggling. Cost of SSDs is usually the determining factor of deploying this technology, but with the competition driving down cost, SSDs on servers could be justified. Recently, Samsung announced a 16TB SSD giving us a taste of things to come. Maybe it is time to start exploring the possibilities that SSDs can provide. Just a thought.