One of the cool things about working at SanDisk is partnering with the world’s top product designers who are building the next generation of smart devices. Whether it’s something you’ll carry, something you’ll wear, something you’ll put in your living room, or car, we are likely involved with designing the storage system. It’s a massive market, with some estimates of growth to more than 75 billion devices by 2020.
How can we anticipate and meet the storage demands for this huge increase in numbers and types of devices? How do we accurately assess the corresponding exponential growth in data that must be stored and accessed from even more sophisticated devices?
We’ve invested heavily in studies of how devices are actually used over a day, a week, and over their lifetime. Our planning always starts with in-depth research into our customers’ patterns of use for current devices and applications.
Today we are laser-focused on designing system level architectures that deliver storage solutions for the next generation of smart devices.
With help from device manufacturers, we model storage behaviors within systems. We’ve gained great insights into how smart devices are being used today and how storage activity is profiled as it relates to application processors, sensors, networks, and the other subsystems that contribute to the complete user experience.
We’re evolving SanDisk storage architectures to directly align with smart device use trends and data growth trends.
As a result of our research-centric approach to architecture planning, future SanDisk storage solutions are being designed to meet aggressive demands for higher resilience, higher capacity, and higher performance.
With so many compelling solutions for storing everything in the cloud, you might ask why is local flash storage so important? Since SanDisk storage solutions are transforming hyperscale data centers, we love seeing more gigabytes stored in the flash-optimized data centers that are powering the cloud. Anyone focused on providing exceptional user experiences, however, will also understand the importance of local storage for data and applications on smartphones, tablets, media boxes, and caching servers. In fact, Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at TechNalysis, recently wrote a paper on caching the cloud that is an excellent read.
We hope the SanDisk Mobile blog can be a resource for better understanding and appreciating the storage innovations that are fueling the smart device revolution.
We are constantly building on our history of pioneering storage technology at SanDisk. As we embrace the latest smart devices in our homes, offices, schools, cars, and literally every area of our lives, I look forward to many more conversations about what might come next.
