Milestone: More Than 100 Companies in All-Flash Subsystems

We keep track of the manufacturers of all-flash subsystems since the beginning of this market more than ten years ago and now probably the fastest segment in the worldwide storage industry with software-defined storage, hyperconvergence and SSD.

Now have counted more than one hundred firms offering this kind of systems to answer to the speed needed by critical applications (data base, HPC, big data analysis, etc.). We don’t include firms manufacturing hybrid units with SSDs and/or HDDs, only purposed-built flash arrays.

The first one historically was probably SeaChange International for a media server in 2008.

Nimbus Data, born on 2003, was a pioneer, shipping 10GbE storage system as soon as 2006 and incorporating SSD technology in IP storage in 2008.

Several other start-ups were founded focusing on this activity including Violin Memory and Fusion-io (acquired for $1.1 billion by SanDisk – now WD – in 2014) in 2005, Nimble Storage in 2007, Kaminario, Tintri and WhipTail Technologies (acquired by Cisco in 2013) in 2008, Pure Storage, XtremIO and Tegile Systems in 2009, SolidFire in 2010.

Storage leader EMC now Dell EMC incorporated flash-based SSDs into enterprise storage in 2008 on Symmetrix VMAX and VNX, and shipped nearly 14PB of flash capacity in storage arrays from 2010 to 2011, before the acquisition of XtremIO in 2012 for $430 million, then ScaleIO in 2013 for a price estimated between for $200 to $300 million, and DSSD in 2014.

Progressively all storage giants invested in all-flash arrays (AFAs), mainly by acquisitions, like HPE buying Nimble Storage for $1,060 million in 2017, NetApp, after entering with its own systems, getting SolidFire for $870 million in 2015, Western Digital buying Skyera, incorporated in HGST, in 2014, and IBM handling Texas Memory Systems in 2012.

HDS is in the market with its own products but seems not really successful in AFA.

WW AFA Market
(in $ million)

(Source: IDC, compiled by StorageNewsLetter.com)

According to a report from Dell’Oro Group, AFA market revenue grew 48% year-over-year in 1Q17, reaching just over $1.3 billion.

Here is the IDC ranking in revenue of all-flash array vendors in 2016: 1/ Dell EMC, 2/ NetApp, 3/ HPE, 4/ Pure Storage.

For the same market in 1Q17 Dell’Oro offers the following results: 1/ Dell EMC 29%, 2/ NetApp 21%, 3/ HPE 17%, 4/ Pure Storage 12%, and 5/ IBM 7%.

But hybrid storage subsystems – with SSDs and HDDs – continues to be a bigger market, up to now.

72% based of AFA makers are based in USA, and today, most of the companies historically involved HDD arrays,  especially several Taiwanese ones, have their own SSD arrays, NAS or SAN.

About none of them manufacture SSDs integrated into their systems. But here also the offering is impressive with 168 SSD makers in the world.

Number of firms in AFAs by country
USA: 77
Taiwan: 10
Germany: 4
Japan: 4
China: 3
France: 2
UK: 2
Canada: 1
Ireland:1
Israel: 1
Italy: 1
The Netherlands: 1

List of all companies (107) involved in flash arrays in the world:
2CRSI (France and USA)
Aberdeen (USA)
AC&NC (USA)
AccelStor (Taiwan)
AIC (USA)
American Megatrends (USA)
Apeiron Data Systems (USA)
Archion Technologies  (USA)
Ardis Technologies (The Netherlands)
Arkologic (USA)
Astute Networks (USA)
Atlantis Computing (USA)
Aupera Technologies (Canada)
Avalanche Technology (USA)
Avere Systems (USA)
Beijing Memblaze Technology (China)
BiTMICRO Networks (USA)
Boston Limited (UK)
BRESSNER Technology (Germany)
Buffalo Technology (Japan)
CacheIO (USA)
Cepoint Networks (USA)
CloudByte (USA)
Coho Data (USA)
Curtiss-Wright (USA)
DataDirect Networks (USA)
DataON / Area Data Systems (USA)
Datrium (USA)
Dell EMC  (VMAX, XtremIO, Unity, Isilon) (USA)
E8 Storage (USA)
EasyCo/WildFire Storage (USA)
EchoStream Innovative Solutions (USA)
Editshare (USA)
Enmotus (USA)
eRacks Open Source Systems (USA)
EUROstor (Germany)
Exablox (USA)
Fujitsu (Japan)
GB Labs (UK)
GreenBytes (USA)
HighPoint Technologies (USA)
Hitachi Data Systems (USA)
HGST/WD (USA)
HoneycombData (USA)
HPE / Nimble Storage (USA)
Huawei Tehnologies (China)
IBM/Texas Memory Systems (USA)
IceWEB (USA)
Infortrend Technology (Taiwan)
Innodisk (Taiwan)
Intellique (France)
iXsystems (USA)
JBOD Storage Solutions (USA)
JDV Solutions (USA)
Kaminario (USA)
Lucid Technology (USA)
Mangstor (USA)
Micron Technology (USA)
MPSTOR (Ireland)
NEC (Japan)
NetApp / SolidFire (USA)
Nexsan (USA)
Nfina Technologies (USA)
Nimbus Data Systems (USA)
Nutanix (USA)
One Stop Systems (USA)
Oracle (USA)
Other World Computing (USA)
Phoenix International Systems (USA)
Pivot3/NexGen (USA)
ProMAX Systems (USA)
Promise Technology (Taiwan)
PSSC Labs USA)
Pure Storage (USA)
Qnap Systems (Taiwan)
RAID, Inc. (USA)
RAIDON Technology (Taiwan)
Rausch Netzwerktechnik (Germany)
Reduxio Systems (Israel)
Scalable Informatics (USA)
SeaChange International (USA)
Seagate (USA)
Shannon Systems  (acquired by Silicon Motion Technology) (China)
Sihua Technologies (USA, China)
Silicon Graphics International/Starboard Storage Systems (USA)
SkyScale (One Stop Systems) (USA)
Smart IOPS (USA)
Solid Access (USA)
Sphere 3D – HVE ConneXions (USA)
STARDOM (RAIDON Technology) (Taiwan)
StorageQuest (USA)
Supermicro (USA)
Syneto (Italy)
Synology (Taiwan)
Tegile Systems (USA)
Teradata (USA)
Thecus Technology (Taiwan)
Tintri (USA)
Toshiba (Japan)
Vexata (USA)
Violin Memory/GridIron Systems (USA)
Virident Systems (USA)
Western Digital/Skyera (USA)
Winchester Systems (USA)
Wiwynn (Taiwan)
X-IO Technologies (USA)
Zstor (Germany)