CRN_April2023_Issue_1419

CRN STORAGE 100 10

Software is what defines a storage system’s services and capabilities, but hardware is still at the base of every on-premises and cloud storage deployment. And the best hardware requires top-notch components, including processors, SSDs and hard drives, interface cards and memory controllers. Here are 10 of the key unsung heroes of the data center. COMPONENT MAKERS

Broadcom Software Hock Tan President, CEO

Atto Technology

Kingston Technology John Tu Co-Founder, CEO

Kioxia America

Micron Technology Sanjay

Timothy Klein Co-Founder, President, CEO Atto develops

Toshiaki Fujikawa President, CEO Kioxia, which

Mehrotra President, CEO Micron is a

Broadcom started in the

Kingston, which got its

40-year-old developer of memory technology with a portfolio that includes all three top memory and stor- age technologies including DRAM, NAND and NOR. Micron is the fourth largest semiconductor company in the world with 11 manufac- turing sites in 17 countries producing DRAM modules, memory cards, SSDs and more.

1960s as an LED manu- facturer, but over the past decade or so has built itself into a semiconductor and storage powerhouse via multiple major acquisi- tions such as LSI, Brocade, CA Technologies and Symantec. The company as of early 2023 is in the process of trying to close its $61 billion acquisition of VMware.

start designing memory modules during a surface- mount memory shortage in the late 1980s, has since grown into a leading global manufacturer of memory and storage technologies for top-tier data centers, cloud providers and system manufacturers. Its line card includes memory, SSDs, flash drives, memory cards and memory card readers.

in 2018 was spun out of Toshiba as Toshiba Memory Corporation before its name change, is a major multinational manufacturer of NAND flash memory for applica- tions ranging from digital devices to storage mem- ory, and of SSDs for PCs, servers, storage systems and cloud data centers.

storage connectivity and infrastructure technology with offerings focused on Fibre Channel, SAS and SATA, iSCSI, Ethernet, NVMe, NVMe over Fab- rics and Thunderbolt. Its products include storage bridging and connectivity, host bus adapters, Thun- derbolt adapters, RAM-based storage appli- ances and more. Samsung Electronics North America KS Choi President, CEO Samsung manufactures DRAM, microprocessors, SSDs and other similar products. The company, which is a leading SSD manufacturer, early this year introduced its first models based on its 5-nanometer process and seventh-generation V-NAND technology.

ScaleFlux

Seagate Technology Dave Mosley CEO

Solidigm

Western Digital David

Hao Zhong Co-Founder, CEO ScaleFlux deve l ops

Noh Jung (NJ) Kwak Acting CEO So l i d i gm was formed

Goeckeler CEO

Seagate has traditionally been known

We s t e r n Digital is one

of the world’s largest SSD and hard drive manufac- turers, and its portfolio also includes USB flash drives and memory cards. Its storage products target high-performance data center, file storage, gam- ing, surveillance, and data protection applications as well as requirements for embedded flash storage.

SSDs that embed com- putational storage technology into high- performance NVMe flash drives. They are aimed at helping businesses deploy storage intelligence to optimize data center infra- structure for databases, analytics, IoT and 5G. The SSDs have at their heart a custom SoC processor based on Arm technology.

in December 2021 when Intel sold its SSD business and certain NAND SSD- associated intellectual properties along with a China-based NAND mem- ory manufacturing facility to semiconductor manu- facturer SK Hynix. Solidigm manufactures data center and client SSDs along with software to improve SSD performance.

as one of the top manufac- turers of hard drives and SSDs. However, the com- pany has in the past couple of years moved more into cloud, edge and data cen- ter storage capabilities with its Lyve edge-to-cloud mass storage platform. Lyve Cloud includes offer- ings for multi-cloud object storage, analytics and data transfer as a service.

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