“The First Russian SSD” from GS Group – what went wrong?

At the end of February 2018, GS Group announced the start of mass production of SSD drives of its own design in the city of Gusev, Kaliningrad Region. Almost 7 years have passed since then. What has happened to the project over the years, to what extent has the company managed to implement its plans and has its product become truly in demand and popular? Let's try to figure it out.

The first Russian?

The two main components of an SSD are memory and a controller. GS Group purchased memory, or more precisely 3D NAND silicon wafers, from Micron, Kioxia, and SK Hynix. Cutting and packaging were organized in Gusev. Controllers were also brought from abroad. They were configured in Russia, and then the finished product was assembled. And this is what it looked like in 2018: 256 GB capacity, 2.5″ form factor, SATA 3.0 interface.

To the credit of GS Group, it should be noted that the company did not simply order ready-made drives from OEM manufacturers and re-stick labels in its “Technopolis GS innovation cluster,” but actually assembled, configured, and tested the SSDs itself. But whether it is possible to call the product domestic with such a level of localization is a big question.

New models

In 2019, the company “speeded up” its SSD by 5 times – it released a model with PCI-e. Later, drives appeared in the M.2 2280 and U.2 form factors. Then they added support for the NVMe protocol. The maximum memory capacity increased to 2 TB. GS Group then said that they could produce more than 1 million devices per year.

How the project developed

In 2020, GS Group SSD drives were included in the unified register of industrial products manufactured in the Russian Federation. This means that state-owned companies should prioritize purchasing domestic products. However, if their price is less than 30% higher than a foreign analogue.

I honestly searched the State Procurement website for information about tenders and it turned out that GS Group does not take all the largest contracts from federal customers. For example, Artek purchased storage devices with an initial contract price of 5.6 million from a private individual for 2.9 million. And this is one of the largest tenders for the purchase of SSDs since 2020.

In 2021, PCIe NVMe drives in the U.2 form factor were included in the register. Over the years, 15 SSD models from GS Group were recognized as products manufactured in the Russian Federation. However, in 2023, only 6 of the company's drives were included in the updated register.

At the end of 2023, GS Group introduced two new SSDs in the M.2 form factor. One with SATA III on a new four-channel controller for PCs and laptops. The second with PCIe 3×4 for ultrabooks and tablets. And at the time of publication, this is the latest news about the project that I was able to find.

What went wrong?

It so happened that I worked at GS Group during these years. Initially, the drives were positioned as solutions for corporate clients and were aimed at the largest government customers. And the main advantages were reliability and that very localization of production in the country. No bugs, backdoors, everything is safe. And in some areas, this is a truly decisive advantage. Especially now.

I tried to download the SSD catalog, but it didn't work — the file wouldn't load. So it's not that easy to find out the current prices. Only two models were found on the open market. And they weren't budget ones. However, it was clear to everyone that it wouldn't be possible to compete on price with foreign manufacturers in the consumer segment.

The project itself was created for the specific conditions of Russian business and for one specific customer – the state. And here it is successful simply because GS Group has no competitors and none are expected. So if the “first Russian SSD” exists, it means that someone really needs it.