| Page (1) of 1 - 05/20/09 |
 email article |
 print
page |
|
Verbatim just celebrated its 40th year in the removable storage market and a lot has changed in those 40 years, even in the last 10 years. Verbatim CEO Randy Queen speaks on the future of removable storage, where he sees it going, and what to expect. Randy, who joined the company in 1989, has witnessed a lot in the storage market, from the rise of the floppy disk (which, contrary to popular belief, is not dead), to larger capacity devices such as the Bernoulli, SyQuest, and Zip drives, to CD, DVD and now Blu Ray disc media, and finally to devices that can store 4GB and more in a form factor that can fit in your wallet.
DMN: Over the last 10 years there have been huge changes to the data storage market. Floppies are dead and it seems USB flash drives have been the storage solution since 2000. What do you foresee in the future with regard to this type of storage medium?
Randy Queen: Our industry has certainly seen tremendous change in the past 10 years. At Verbatim, we've seen our removable storage range expand over time to meet changing consumer needs for storing, moving, and using digital content. What we have found is that no new media kills the media it is supposedly replacing. Floppies are an excellent example. There are still several hundred million produced/sold globally. Who buys them and why I'm not quite certain, but they aren't quite dead yet. USB flash drives have certainly come to dominate the lower-capacity market, and their capacity/performance/price ratio is going to continue to improve over the next 5-10 years, at least.
As the demand for higher capacities grows, the drives will become less expensive, which is especially important for video content producers. We will see continuing increases in capacities of these devices as NAND flash technology evolves. We will also see improvements in data transfer rates as USB3 interfaces are introduced beginning in 2010. However, while USB drives are ideal for taking data (photos etc.) with you wherever you go and for transferring data between computers, optical media is still the lowest-cost storage solution when you want to give files to someone. We see demand for the complete range of storage products continuing to grow for the foreseeable future.
DMN: Consumers are becoming more tech savvy with the popularity of digital cameras, MP3 players and other media devices. How has the consumer market for storage changed over the last 10 years in correlation with these devices?
RQ: The most significant change in the consumer storage market was precipitated by the advent of MP3 players, digital camera, DVD burners/players, and other similar CE devices. The result has been exponential growth and increased value placed on the digital content that is either generated or purchased for use on these devices. Consumers are now empowered by these CE devices to become content producers or collectors. This empowerment has created a number of consumer storage-related needs. At Verbatim, we work diligently to develop and deliver a full range of storage solutions that can best meet those needs. We see the storage-related needs as one of the following: Capture/Recording, Mobility, Editing, Archiving, or Sharing. With a full line of optical, USB Flash Drives, Memory Cards, and External Hard Disk Drives, we can meet all of these needs.
DMN: It seems that solid state storage is aiming to supplant the traditional Winchester based storage solution found in the personal computer, yet the traditional platter based drive survived other assaults on its dominance in the past--magneto optical being one that never gained traction except with NeXt Computers. Hard disk drives have lots of advantages--very cheap cost per gigabyte, universally accepted, and speedy. Solid State is still very expensive when compared to HDD technology. Do you see Solid State replacing the hard disk drive any time soon?
RQ: Magnetic hard disk drives (HDDs) have certainly stood the test of time as the primary storage medium for personal computers over the years. Our view is that HDD will not be entirely replaced by solid state drives (SSDs) any time soon. SSDs are certainly finding their place in the laptop environment where lower power requirements, portability, and ruggedness are needed. However, the price of SSD compared to HDD remains a significant hurdle in the near term. There are still technological advancements in HDDs that are being realized, and that will make it a technology to be reckoned with for the foreseeable future. The more cost-effective capacity we can deliver the bigger the demand. Our goal is to meet that demand.
DMN: What types of storage devices do you foresee replacing the current offerings in the future? Will we see terabytes on thumb sized devices?
RQ: One of the benefits of participating in all relevant areas of the removable storage space is that we have visibility to markets that are developing and technology advancements that are underway in each area. That being said, we can see advancements in all of the technologies where we operate: optical recording media, flash, and HDD. In the case of optical, we are seeing a developing market for recordable Blu-Ray (BD). As with DVD, when the price of BD burners and recorders reach key consumer price points, we will see a transition from DVD to BD at the consumer level this year and accelerating in the next two years.
Some might say the transition is slow but based on historical consumer adoption of technology, it is pretty fast. In the case of flash, there are numerous technological advancements that will continue to push capacities upward for existing products like USB Flash drives and memory cards. These advancements are also enabling new formats that operate with higher capacities and faster data transfer speeds (ex. the Verbatim PCI Express Card SSD). In the case of external HDDs, as mentioned, we can see a number of technological advancements on the horizon that will continue to increase capacities, allowing these products to continue to outpace flash-based solutions for the foreseeable future as the low cost/high-capacity storage solution for archiving and backup. Some of the advances will also produce more power-conservative units to extend portable device battery life. In addition, we see a developing consumer market for networked HDDs. Home networked storage is finally becoming a necessary part of the family content library picture and dramatic improvements are being made in making it easier to plug and play and manage. Regarding Terabytes on thumb-sized devices, it's not at all impossible, it is a matter of time and costs.
Page: 1
John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com
Related Sites: Digital Producer , Media Workstation , Audio Video Producer , Corporate Media News , Presentation Master , Storage , IBN - IT Business Net , IBN - Storage , IBN - Hardware , Digital Producer , Media Workstation , Audio Video Producer , Corporate Media News , Presentation Master , Storage
Related Newsletter: DMN Newsletter , CMN Newsletter , Timeline Newsletter , KNews Newsletter , IBN - IT Weekly Newsletter , DMN Newsletter , CMN Newsletter , Timeline Newsletter , KNews Newsletter
Vegas Pro 8 + Free Vegas Seminar Series
With 23 Reviews.
With 7 Reviews.
With 1 Reviews.
With 20 Reviews.
