“Google will use SSDs for server park”

Google plans to use SSDs in part of its server park. The search company would like to reduce the energy consumption of its data centers in this way.

Instead of ready-made SSDs, Google has according to Digitimes chose to purchase only the essential parts. For example, Intel would supply the nand-flash chips, while Google would purchase the controller chips from Marvell. Delivery is scheduled for the end of the second quarter. Digitimes relies on resources from memory manufacturers.

According to Avi Cohen, an analyst at Avian Securities, SSDs consume about half the power of an equivalent hard drive, but the actual energy savings can drastic be higher. This is because one SSD can replace multiple hard drives due to its faster access time, such as in applications such as index searching. For other tasks, such as storing large databases, the higher throughput of hard drives is important again. That is why Cohen foresees that SSDs and hard drives will still be found fraternally side by side in data centers in the near future.

The deployment of SSDs in Google servers could provide a huge boost to the memory industry. The current SSDs in notebook computers, for example, are usually an expensive option, while the usefulness in power consumption or performance is not really visible to the average consumer. The memory industry is currently struggling with a surplus of nand-flash memory, according to Cohen. A sudden large decrease by Google could cause this to spill over to a shortage of 16Gb and 32Gb nand-flash chips, he said.