Nearline SSD Rise: HDD Gap Fuels AI Data Center Reshaping

AI's surge is transforming data center storage. HDD faces high costs and long lead times due to new tech hurdles, creating a significant supply gap. This opens a key opportunity for QLC Nearline SSDs. NAND suppliers are accelerating advanced process transitions to dominate the AI-driven high-capacity storage market, positioning Nearline SSDs as the future mainstream.

Key Highlights:

• The explosion of AI is fundamentally reshaping data center storage architecture.
• HDDs encounter high costs and extended lead times due to new HAMR technology's investment and production bottlenecks.
• This HDD supply constraint presents a critical market opening for QLC Nearline SSDs, previously at a cost disadvantage.
• NAND Flash suppliers are rapidly accelerating their transition to higher process nodes to produce large-capacity Nearline SSDs.
• Nearline SSDs offer superior performance, lower power consumption, and better Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), with their cost curve expected to decline further.
• Driven by AI, Nearline SSDs are projected to increasingly replace HDDs, becoming the mainstream storage solution for the AI era.