Exadrive 100TB is still by far the biggest solid state drive by capacity available today
When Nimbus Data launched the 100TB ExaDrive DC on March 19, 2018, it was by far the largest solid state drive ever launched, noticeably larger than your average SSD as it used a 3.5-inch form factor rather than the usual 2.5-inch laptop hard disk drives fit into. Since then, no one has even come close to challenging its hegemony, but why is that? Part of the answer can be found in an interview TechRadar Pro did two years ago with the CEO of Nimbus Data, Thomas Isakovich. Firstly, Nimbus Data has a patent pending on the scale-out architecture of an SSD that gives the company a fundamental advantage that will be tough for other vendors to work around. Then there’s the size of the market. Extra-large SSD capacities appeal only to a tiny fraction of the overall addressable solid state storage market. The big vendors are chasing flash sales volume, typically found in mobile phones, notebooks, and tablets, as well as boot drives for servers – and increasingly, cars. The past two years have seen disruption of supply chains around the world as the Covid-19 chasm descended on the whole world. Pent-up demand for silicon chips meant that whatever capacity was available was rapidly snapped up, an ongoing problem which will only get worse because of the ongoing war in Ukraine.
