One-fourth of new laptops and a little more than half of new desktop computers are expected to incorporate a data storage method that pairs flash memory with traditional hard disk drives by 2016, said two storage analysts.

Tom Coughlin, president of Coughlin Associates, and Jim Handy, an analyst with Objective Analysis, in a report published by the Storage Networking Industry Association, said that pairing flash memory with HDDs will result in better overall performance and lower cost than rival solid-state drives. SSDs are replacing HDDs in computers but their higher cost means HDDs will remain in the years ahead, the analysts said. Specifically, they predict that 53 percent of PCs and 25 percent of laptops will include paired flash and HDDs by 2016.

"Rather than displacing HDDs, flash memory will allow customers to keep their low-cost HDD storage while enjoying performance enhancements that approach those of a pure SSD-based computer," the report said. "The required modicum of flash memory will be inexpensive enough to afford users these benefits without requiring a significant price premium."

NAND flash memory--the primary storage chips inside iPhones, iPads and SSDs--can offer a caching and buffering layer between HDDs and DRAM memory, the researchers said. They said flash will become more important as a performance gap keeps growing between RAM and rotating storage.

Today, Seagate makes hybrid hard disk drives, but the analysts expect most HDD makers to follow soon.

Flash memory paired with hard disk drives will also play a significant role in creating a super tablet device called the "fat tablet." Some percent of the total tablet market will be "fat" by 2016, the two analysts forecast.

For more:
- see this InfoWorld article

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