The 10 Coolest Storage Component Vendors: The 2024 Storage 100

As part of CRN’s 2024 Storage 100, here are 10 vendors storage component vendors taking their offerings to new heights.

The software-defined storage and the data recovery/observability/resiliency sections of the Storage 100 emphasized the value that software has on the storage features and services that add value to the storage offered to businesses small and large.

However, the focus on software should not by any means take away from the value of the hardware. No matter how wonderful and valuable storage software is, it still requires a solid base of hardware on which to run.

That hardware may be an industry-standard server, or a purpose-built appliance. Or it may be on purpose-built hardware stacked in a cloud provider’s data center. But it needs components: flash storage, SSDs, hard disk drives, memory. So for all the focus on software, hardware still counts.

As part of CRN’s 2024 Storage 100, here are 10 vendors storage component vendors taking their offerings to new heights.

Apacer

Chia-Kun Chang

CEO

Apacer develops a wide range of digital storage and sharing products and services, including SSDs and DRAM. Its SSD lineup includes PCIe, SATA and PATA, industrial, eMMC and specialty models, while its DRAM lines include embedded memory, server and workstation memory, specialized memory, and memory with specific characteristics including ruggedized, wide temperature and lead-free.

Kingston

John Tu

Co-Founder, CEO

Kingston, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of memory products, was an early pioneer in developing memory modules for computers. The company has since expanded to offer a wide range of memory and memory cards, SSDs, USB flash drives, memory card readers, and embedded and industrial embedded flash and DRAM components.

Kioxia

Hideyuki Namekawa

President, CEO, Kioxia America

Kioxia is a global leading developer and manufacturer of flash memory and SSDs. The company, which was spun out of Toshiba as Toshiba Memory Corp. before getting its current name, produces a wide range of memory and SSDs for both business and personal computing requirements, in addition to enterprise, data center and client storage applications.

Micron Technology

Sanjay Mehrotra

President, CEO

Micron is one of the world’s largest producers of computer memory, as well as a major developer of flash storage technologies. Its memory products include DRAM modules and components as well as high-bandwidth memory and CXL modules for data center memory expansion. The company also develops a wide range of data center, client and industrial SSDs.

Pliops

Ido Bukspan

CEO

Pliops develops what it calls extreme data processors. These XDPs combine multiple data and storage technologies including a hardware-based storage engine, in-line transparent compression, RAID 5+ data protection, and built-in application integration into a single device that works with any server or SSD to improve application performance while cutting overall infrastructure cost.

Samsung

Kye Hyun Kyung

President and CEO, Device Solutions Division

Samsung is one of the world’s largest producers of semiconductor components and products, including DRAM components and modules and SSDs for PC, data center, enterprise and consumer applications. The company is also a major provider of semiconductor foundry services. In addition, Samsung develops microprocessor, image sensor, display, security and power technologies.

ScaleFlux

Hao Zhong

Co-Founder, CEO

ScaleFlux builds what it calls a “better SSD” by embedding computational storage technology into its flash drives. Its system-on-a-chip technology is behind the company’s Computational Storage Engine technology that embeds intelligent storage processing capabilities into NVMe SSDs, which the company says helps reduce data movement, enhance performance and improve efficiency.

Seagate Technology

Dave Mosley

CEO

Seagate manufactures external and internal SSDs and hard drives for cloud, edge, data center and personal storage. The company also develops integrated mass storage for business and personal use, including arrays and expansion devices for managed block storage and hybrid storage applications as well as the Lyve edge to cloud storage service.

Solidigm

David Dixon, Kevin Noh

Co-CEOs

Solidigm, founded when Korea-based SK hynix acquired Intel’s NAND and SSD business, is a major developer of SSDs for data center and client device use. Its data center SSD line ranges from standard-endurance SATA drives to high-end models with varying performance and capacity levels. Its consumer line includes both PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 NVME SSDs.

Western Digital

David Goeckeler

CEO

Western Digital has long been a leader in the development of hard drive, SSD, flash drive and memory card technologies, as well as NAS and other storage products. However, the company is currently in the process of separating into two independent, publicly traded companies by year end, one focused on hard drives and the other on flash storage.