• SSD prices continue to plunge
    113 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Cost-per-gigabyte is down more 66% for some models in three years. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE]Since 2010, solid state drive (SSD) prices for some models have plummeted from $3 to less than $1 per gigabyte. After dropping 20% in the second quarter of 2012 alone, SSD prices fell another 10% in the second half of the year, according to data from IHS iSupply. The better deals for SSDs are now around 80- to 90-cents-per-gigabyte of capacity, though some sale prices have been even lower, according to Ryan Chien, an IHS SSD and storage analyst. Oversupply of NAND flash memory is primarily behind the price drops over the past couple of years, but manufacturing is now more in line with demand and prices have begun to stabilize, Chien said. Last year, SSD prices dropped 23%, according to commerce tracking site Dynamite Data. Dynamite Data said it has monitored the price, rebate and stock status of more than 600 individual SSDs at hundreds of e-commerce merchants over the past three years. In August, it noted in a blog post that SSDs had finally broken the "magic" $1-per-gigabyte price point, proclaiming it "the new normal." The average commodity SSD price was $3 per gigabyte in 2010, when capacities were rarely above 128GB. "We first saw low-budget SSDs hit the $1 mark in April, with heavy mail-in-rebates," Kristopher Kubicki, chief architect at Dynamite Data, wrote in the blog post. "However, the industry has been very consistent and extremely fast in its direction. The bigger and newer players pushed the bottom quartile [price] from $1.5/GB to $1/GB in just four months! "We're currently experiencing the fastest decline in SSD prices in three years," he added. "If history has anything to say, we will now see prices per drive stabilize and the size of the drives substantially grow over the next few years." Storage and memory tracking site DRAMeXchange reported similar SSD price drops. As of November, it said SSD prices were down 24% from the beginning of 2012. At the same time, hard disk drive prices have remained "inflated" -- about 47% higher than they were prior to the 2011 Thai floods. "Despite hard drive prices remaining high -- coupled with the continual decline of SSD prices -- the per-GB price of the largest capacity SSDs (300-600GB) are currently nine times more expensive than 500GB notebook hard disk drives," said DRAMeXchange analyst Jessica Chang. SSDs today are far more reliable, have greater endurance and perform better (in some cases, two to three times better) than in 2009. There are also new SSD categories. For example, hybrid drives combine NAND flash cache memory with a spinning disk in a hard-drive form factor. In addition, in adherence to Intel's new ultrabook computer specifications (PDF), manufacturers are beginning to produce laptops with two drive slots, one for a hard drive and the other for a low-capacity cache SSD that works with hard drives to speed up boot and application load times. Even with the dramatic price drops, SSDs as aftermarket PC upgrades are still seen as niche purchases. "Though HDDs and DRAM are not sexy, they do far more aftermarket business than SSDs," IHS' Chien said. When it comes to companies making and shipping consumer-grade SSDs through channel partners, Intel and Samsung continue to lead the market in the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, respectively. They are followed by OCZ, Micron (Crucial) and Kingston, according to Chien. As for those shipping SSDs to system manufacturers of PCs, laptops and arrays, the top players are Samsung, Toshiba, Intel, Micron, and Sandisk. Shipments to equipment manufacturers will remain the dominant market for SSDs, Chien said. "Samsung hadn't really been a big aftermarket SSD player until its 830 SSD came out; a combination of aggressive pricing and improved drive performance has catapulted it near the top fairly quickly," Chien said. "Intel drives are dependable, but not as fast; OCZ products have always struggled with reliability and the recent shakeups have not helped."[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9234744/SSD_prices_continue_to_plunge[/url]
Every year since like 2006 SSDs have been 'only a year or two away from becoming affordable' Good to see it finally happening
so where can i buy a Super Star Destro- oh
[QUOTE=smurfy;38881873]Every year since like 2006 SSDs have been 'only a year or two away from becoming affordable' Good to see it finally happening[/QUOTE] Now it needs to get rid of that silly read write limit then it will become a proper replacement to hard drives!
[QUOTE=jordguitar;38881952]Now it needs to get rid of that silly read write limit then it will become a proper replacement to hard drives![/QUOTE] There is a good chance you'll have out grown the size of the SSD, or the computer by the time you hit it. Seriously a spinning mechanical disk has more room for failure/errors than an SSD, unless you cheap out and buy a OCZ
The cycle of technology continues.
[QUOTE=Tucan Sam;38881983]There is a good chance you'll have out grown the size of the SSD, or the computer by the time you hit it. Seriously a spinning mechanical disk has more room for failure/errors than an SSD, unless you cheap out and buy a OCZ[/QUOTE] I'm sorry "Unless you cheap out and buy a OCZ"? Can you please tell me how OCZ SSDs are bad and for cheap people?
I remember an article just like this but for regular hard drives dropping below a dollar a gig. Time flies...
[QUOTE=Tucan Sam;38881983]There is a good chance you'll have out grown the size of the SSD, or the computer by the time you hit it. Seriously a spinning mechanical disk has more room for failure/errors than an SSD, unless you cheap out and buy a OCZ[/QUOTE] Once they fix that limit then we will be at the point where we no longer have any moving parts that can fail easily. Until that day comes, then there isnt much of a reason for me to move off to a SSD. Hard drives have a likelihood on failing within 6 months if they were bad in the first place. After that mark you are generally safe for the rest of its lifespan (unless you do some really stupid shit to cause problems). A 3tb drive gains me ~22gb per dollar so hard drives are not going anywhere and ssd's are mostly limited to mobile applications and those that really need the speed for certain applications (not programs)
I bought an SSD last year. Best decision ever.
Bought 2 256gb mSATA3 SSD's 2 days ago for me and my friends Notebooks, these things fucking rock. For about 480$ that is, he paid about 400$ for an 256gb SSD 1 year ago.
[url]http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16820227793[/url] Oh baby
[QUOTE=areolop;38882314][url]http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16820227793[/url] Oh baby[/QUOTE] nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooope
I bought one a couple years ago, it was 60gb and slow by todays standards. $350 I bought one a couple of months ago. 240gb 4x as fast, $250
[QUOTE=peepin;38882147]I'm sorry "Unless you cheap out and buy a OCZ"? Can you please tell me how OCZ SSDs are bad and for cheap people?[/QUOTE] He can't because they are great.
I remember buying an 60 gig SSD for my desktop in june last year for 90 euros. The Samsung 830 series has a 128 gig version for that exact price. Yup, times have changed.
ewww ocz
[QUOTE=peepin;38882147]I'm sorry "Unless you cheap out and buy a OCZ"? Can you please tell me how OCZ SSDs are bad and for cheap people?[/QUOTE] They fail and use sandforce or similarly poor controllers
Do not buy OCZ drives, they are not reliable and OCZ has a reputation for fucking consumers in various ways. [editline]18th December 2012[/editline] Don't buy Crucial M4, their firmware is horrendous. One version caused the drive to crash every hour after 5000 hours and the next version the drive would not initialize (aka dead). They released a new firmware version after those two and claims it fixes it. I'd be weary.
Hm. Maybe I could've waited on my purchase. Doesn't help that my shit motherboard which proclaimed itself SATA3 capable turned out to be a pile of shit regarding that; now running a 120GB SSD in SATA2
[QUOTE=jordguitar;38881952]Now it needs to get rid of that silly read write limit then it will become a proper replacement to hard drives![/QUOTE] [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1230367]It's not exactly getting rid of the limit, but it's close enough[/url]
There already are some laptops that are sold with SSDs only, so it's safe to say that they're on their way to becoming mainstream.
Saying that, they appear to have jumped up a bit recently. I remember remarking to a friend that the M4-256GB was at the same price (£126) as when I bought my first M4-128GB, but it seems to have gone upto about £150 now, but I guess that might have been on offer. But still, I think this shows the rate of price drop: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/nJDEl.png[/IMG] And now it costs £79 [editline]18th December 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=TehWhale;38882398]Do not buy OCZ drives, they are not reliable and OCZ has a reputation for fucking consumers in various ways. [editline]18th December 2012[/editline] Don't buy Crucial M4, their firmware is horrendous. One version caused the drive to crash every hour after 5000 hours and the next version the drive would not initialize (aka dead). They released a new firmware version after those two and claims it fixes it. I'd be weary.[/QUOTE] The Unrecogisable firmware bug was only for UEFI systems, and while this is very stupid to release this, it did say in big letters above the download. 000F is the best all round firmware for m4. I've never had problem with any of my M4's.
[QUOTE=Darkimmortal;38882396]They fail and use sandforce or similarly poor controllers[/QUOTE] Sandforce controllers aren't inherently bad. Intel's SSDs are pretty much tied with Samsung's offerings at the top of the market and use Sandforce controllers. EDIT: Speaking for consumer material here. Server grade stuff is a different world entirely, in more ways than a few.
I'm a corsair fan myself.
[QUOTE=Zackin5;38882494][url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1230367]It's not exactly getting rid of the limit, but it's close enough[/url][/QUOTE] Unless they can make it safe and depending on the temp required for it to do its magic, it might not be that simple.
[QUOTE=reevezy67;38882572]I'm a corsair fan myself.[/QUOTE] Two PCs with Corsair Force3s and not even a hiccup (1 year of intensive use)
samsung 840 best ssd
[QUOTE=jordguitar;38881952]Now it needs to get rid of that silly read write limit then it will become a proper replacement to hard drives![/QUOTE] It's a long shot but hopefully people start adopting Samsung's f2fs (Flash Friendly File System). In theory it will make the SSD last longer.
[QUOTE=FlamingSpaz;38882774]It's a long shot but hopefully people start adopting Samsung's f2fs (Flash Friendly File System). In theory it will make the SSD last longer.[/QUOTE] If anything a Linux distro will end up supporting it. Edit: Actually after some Google action it seems like it was actually made for the linux kernel, you will most likely see support for it in the future.
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