Seagate and Samsung Enter Agreement to Jointly Develop Enterprise SSD Controller Tech
 

Seagate Technology plc, the world leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions, and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced memory technology, today announced that they have entered into a joint development and licensing agreement. Under the agreement, the two companies will jointly develop and cross-license related controller technologies for solid state drive (“SSD”) storage devices to attain the high levels of performance, reliability and endurance demanded by enterprise storage applications.

The joint development effort builds on the existing SSD capabilities of each company while combining Seagate’s leadership in enterprise storage technology with Samsung’s flash memory technology specific to 30 nanometer-class MLC NAND. The jointly developed controller will be utilized in Seagate’s enterprise-class SSDs. “Seagate has long recognized that solid state technology has an important role to play in the comprehensive solutions the storage industry will deliver today and in the future, particularly in the enterprise market,” said Steve Luczo, Seagate chairman, president and CEO. “Today’s agreement with Samsung will help us bring a compelling set of SSD innovations to the enterprise storage market, with benefits that range from enhanced performance, endurance and reliability to cost and capacity improvements. Overall, this agreement with Samsung strengthens our SSD solutions strategy, and positions Seagate well as global demand for storage continues on its strong growth path.”

“We are pleased to be jointly developing a high-performance SSD controller with Seagate for the enterprise storage market,” said Dr. Changhyun Kim, senior vice president and Samsung Fellow, Memory product planning & application engineering, Semiconductor Business, Samsung Electronics. “Our green memory solution is designed to enable more energy-efficient server applications, which is expected to increase the use of NAND-based SSD storage in enterprise applications.”

what an odd partnership, the HDD bigboys rarely team up

I don't know how to feel about this cause I like Sammy, but me and Seagate had a falling out.

This in conjunction with Hynix beginning mass production of 20nm 64Gb chips (story) can only spell good things for SSD consumers from mid-2011 on. This is an almost perfect, albeit unusual, alliance, but doesn't it seem like Samsung has more to bring to the table?

Well, I see it a little differently. Seagate is trying to wedge itself into the SSD market via this teaming with Samsung.

I've just noticed that the companies that make HDDs are really non-existent in the SSD market. With the exception of only a handful of products from the big names in HDD we know.

This can only mean a more aggressive approach to hybrid drives or a complete focus for Seagate on SSD tech. Samsung is just an OEM for NAND chips, Seagate will do the rest.
Bottom line, we can expect either colossal hybrid drives (2TB with 16GB of NAND would be nice) or another competitor on a SSD area. We'll see.

I hope were on the edge of SSD's going mainstream. Or at least get cheaper.

I am very cross indeed with Seagate today. My external hard drive has died, and I didn't even do anything to it. It was only in my laptop bag, and my laptops hard drive is still going just fine. From now on, I'm sticking to WD.

As for this topic, I'm sticking to WD.

Hard drives all fail eventually, regardless of brand and model. A single experience with a single hard drive is a drop in the ocean and does not justify refusing to buy another of that brand (or even that model) ever again.

Actually it's not the first drive I've had go wrong form Seagate lately. I've had a 1TB Barracuda fail, another external drive (same model), a 200GB drive fail, an 80GB SATA, a 500GB that broke it's SATA connector just by plugging it in (I wasn't rough in it), and several other Seagate drives are on their way out.

Meanwhile my WD Raptor 70GB is still going strong, and my 2 1TB Greens, my 250GB RE and the WD in my laptop. All of them are fine. Seagate has let me down since they acquired Maxtor.

Just an OEM for NAND? Are you kidding me? Samsung is one of the largest companies in consumer electronics. The reason their offerings for PC parts and such are limited to a few HDD, some NAND chips, and a few other minor parts is because it is not their primary market. They make everything from NAND chips, embedded processors, circuit board units, and other base parts for a large number of other companies. They they also make several hundred consumer products themselves, TV's being the most obvious. Samsung has little desire to create person products for consumers in "our" market because they can make more money make parts of everybody else's stuff. Yet another reason for this partnership.

Trust me when I say Samsung will do most of the manufacturing and design specs here. I see Seagate doing the research, marketing, and final assemble. I can also see Samsung working into the deal a way for them to keep the license on a few of the manufacturing traits to ad to their own HDD's and SSD's (when available) in the future.

My guess would be Seagate releasing a better Hybrid drive with a 16 GB section instead of the 4 GB one they have now in 3 to 4 months. Then a full SSD drive first quarter of next year. Sammy will follow with their Hybrid drive and SSD 6 months after Seagate's two release dates.

Samsung makes a pretty decent controller in its own right. Not as good as the SandForce but pretty decent and up there in terms of performance. These two with a kick ass controller (something along SF's) with some new tech (TRIM in Raid settings) and the new 64GB NAND Flash, equals killer win.

True, BUT that does not mean some HDD's are not better than others. I have to agree with the Seagate issues here.

I had a 1tb fail after 6 months of light use. RMA was good, but I put it in my server set up and it still shows to run hotter than all my other drives even when I have changed around the location. I feel Seagate drives just run hotter and that leads to them being less reliable.

I do love samsung

I guess HDD manufacturers are getting tired of getting pwned in the SSD market by memory manufacturers (and Intel, for some reason).

I don't think you understand this correctly. I'm talking about Seagate and Samsung connection here. Samsung will do only NAND part, the rest will be done by Seagate, if they'll go the hybrid way. I know Samsung does other things, i have a mobile phone from Samsung, a LCD monitor, HDD, DVD burner and probably other things as well...

I don't think you understand. The article stated they will jointly develop a control chip for an SSD. That along means Sammy is doing more than you say. And if Seagate was just buying some NAND chips from Sammy, there would be no need to make an announcement like this with the word "jointly" used like 8 times. The article would just say, "Seagate has decided to switch their NAND chips in their current OEM brand to Samsung. (Insert generic compliment about Samsung, then Seagate, then generic comment about how this will help drive the industry.)"

If you are just buying some NANDs from Sammy, you don't call it a joint project. You don't hear PSU companies claiming they are doing join projects with CWD and they make entire PSU's for other companies.

Don't both Samsung and Seagate use "Perpendicular Recording" tech? So wouldn't they already be in cahoots?

Frankly, I'd much rather see far MORE cooperation in the industry. Too much "I'm better than you!" schoolyard nonsense can be pretty tiring.