Google first to go SSD on resident infrastructure

According to Digitimes, Google is going to roll out solid state drives on servers. Intel (INTC) will supply the flash – again, Micron is the 50% partner in Intel's flash production. Marvell will provide the controller.

SSD is typically thought of in mobile applications for a couple of basic reasons: there's no moving parts to jostle around so they malfunction less; they consume less power as a result of the lack of a physical mechanism and power is the ultimate gating factor in mobile computing. Over time, I expect the mobile market to phase out hard drives as we know them in favor of silicon-based solutions for these reasons.

Not long ago, I was told Google was investigating SSD for their mobile workforce. Google is all about cloud computing and it doesn't need giant sentient hard drives on their employee notebooks. Google beams wifi to all of Mountain View, California. Google Docs runs in the cloud. So does Gmail. Their entire application base is geared towards the internet as your storage medium and not your computer. It's part of what makes them a ubiquitous presence. Access from anywhere with anything is kind of the underlying theme. Anyway, if you told me Google was going to go SSD on their corporate notebook program, I'd believe you.

I'm not Google is the first to use SSD on servers, but they're certainly big and influential enough to matter. Power consumption is driving force, according to the article. It was inevitable that the high cost of energy would become a factor in IT spending but I never would have suspected it would drive a high-cost solution up the ranks. Google is probably thinking quite a ways down the road. Theoretically, SSD has a lower failure rate and will require less technical maintenance than existing HDD which saves them money. It will consume less power which saves them money. The upfront cost will be much higher for a while. I think the magic price point is a lot lower than where it is now – I've been thinking 80gb for under $200 makes the whole industry transition. We're nowhere near that with Macbook Air drives costing $1200-1300 a pop.

Google's got the cash to be a pioneer here and a vision of the future. That's what keeps them on top.