Which Company Will Benefit Most from a Hybrid Hard Drive?

In my opinion, Samsung maybe the first company to incorporate the Hybrid Hard Drive, a hard drive that contains flash memory, but if this technology ever takes off, it will not be the one who will benefit the most.

There is a good chance that its flash memory rival, Toshiba, will take the cake. Why Toshiba?

Hybrid Hard Drives I feel will create their initial impact more on notebooks than on desktop PCs. Flash Memory storage benefits for notebooks are enormous and will easily be noticeable since it addresses the following needs:

- saves battery due to less spinning of the hard drive
- more durable since hybrid hard drives are less susceptible to physical shocks
- faster boot times

Based on past reports, we can see that Toshiba was number 2 in market share for flash memory and was the only company to make headway in market share last quarter.

Flash Memory Market Share (1Q / 2006)

Samsung - 48%
Toshiba - 24.6%
Hynix - 14.8%
Renesas - 5.6%
Micron - 2.9%

However, unlike Samsung it is still a big player in the notebook market. In fact, it is number 4 in market share according to Gartner Dataquest.

Laptop Market (2005)

1 Dell- 17.1%
2 HP- 16.5%
3 Acer - 12.2%
4 Toshiba - 10.5%
5 Fujitsu - 8.1%

Source: Toshiba loses ground in notebooks

Samsung maybe the market pioneer, but when Toshiba joins the fray, the latter may find this industry segment a very tough one.

Technorati Tags: Flash Memory / Hybrid Hard Drive / Samsung Toshiba / Notebooks / Laptops