Overcome Notebook Shortage with Superior SSD Capacity

Overcoming notebook shortages by upgrading existing devices with superior SSD technology has become the most viable option for companies to prolong the lifespan of their laptop fleets and to improve staff productivity. By installing new SSD drives in their existing enterprise devices, businesses are working around the ongoing global problem of notebook shortages. "In South Africa, large enterprises are ordering new SSDs in their thousands, to upgrade the performance of their staff notebooks", says Andre Wollheim, Product Manager for Tarsus Distribution.

Wollheim says that a global laptop shortage was sparked at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic last year when the Chinese producers of LCD screens were hard hit. This had a ripple effect on supply at the same time as demand was surging for laptops for remote workers around the world. “We are still seeing shipments delayed by up to eight weeks, and customers buying 500 devices at a time in desperation”.

Compounding the challenge of securing new devices for staff who had to move from office desktops to home notebooks, was the problem of ageing fleets performing poorly and not supporting remote worker productivity. “Even before the pandemic struck, businesses in South Africa were starting to look at memory and storage upgrades – specifically SSD upgrades – instead of buying new devices”, he says.

Wollheim says that larger enterprises are now buying up to 1000 new SSDs at a time to upgrade the performance and prolong the lives of their employees’ notebooks. “Many notebooks still have SATA drives, with moving parts that can be damaged irreparably if the notebook is dropped. These drives can also be slow to boot up and retrieve data, which hampers productivity. In contrast, SSD drives have no moving parts and can therefore significantly improve performance”.

He notes that many new notebooks ship with SSDs already installed, but with limited capacity. Upgrading to a 1TB or 2TB SSD will give users all the storage space of a hard drive, with the performance of an SSD.

Overcoming notebook shortages by upgrading with superior SSD technology, he highlights the new Kingston NV1 NVMe (Non-Volatile MemoryExpress) PCIe SSD, available to resellers through Tarsus Distribution, which is a substantial storage solution that offers read/write speeds up to 2,100/1,700MB/s – up to four times faster than a SATA-based SSDs, and 35 times faster than a traditional hard drive. NV1 NVMe PCIe SSDs are available in capacities of 500GB – 2TB, works with lower power, lower heat, and quicker loading time, and are ideal for thin notebooks and systems with limited space. Since NVMe utilises PCIe sockets, it transfers 25x more data than the SATA equivalent. Along with more data, NVMe’s commands are 2x faster than that of AHCI drivers.

Says Wollheim: “At R750 to R2,000, this is a very cost-effective way to improve device performance and possibly double the lifespan of your fleet".

Find out more about Kingston and Tarsus Distribution by visiting our partner page.

You can also watch Kingston's informative Webinar on how NVMe is revolutionising storage by clicking below or visiting the Tarsus Distribution YouTube channel.