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Best Time to Buy a New SDD?

S

simplymuzik3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 29, 2009
590
1
Im thinking of getting an 80GB Intel X-25 G2. Should I buy soon, or do you think prices will come down a lot soon? It's $305 CAD which is pretty steep for me. When do you think they will come down? Or is there a X-25 G3 coming soon? Thanks for the help! If you know of a cheaper alternative thats just as good as the intel but cheaper, Im all ears :)
 
simplymuzik3 said:
Im thinking of getting an 80GB Intel X-25 G2. Should I buy soon, or do you think prices will come down a lot soon? It's $305 CAD which is pretty steep for me. When do you think they will come down? Or is there a X-25 G3 coming soon? Thanks for the help! If you know of a cheaper alternative thats just as good as the intel but cheaper, Im all ears :)
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The market is in the state of low supply/high prices for the NANDs. SSD cost almost 100$ than they do last year at this point. Nothing we can do about it except wait till more fabs return to normal production of NANDs. Right now they are still restricting the productions to maintain low profit margins.

There's no way of knowing when they'll return to low prices, it may take another several months to see any reductions in price.

If you really have no need for the SSD or if you don't do much with your computers, you should wait until at least generation three of SSDs come out on the market along with mature 6.0Gbps chipsets for Apple's hardware.
 
There is no best time, it all depends on how much you are willing to spend and what capacity you want.
At this point in their development stage, they will improve considerably every year with price reductions. Same amount of money you will spend today to get an SSD will get you double the storage and improved technology next year.
 
Chrysaor said:
Same amount of money you will spend today to get an SSD will get you double the storage and improved technology next year.
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Or, you could say, half the amount of money you spend today will get you an SSD of the same storage, but with also improved technology next year, which is what I'm waiting for, and I bet the OP is too ;)

I really don't mind an 80GB SSD, but I do mind the current high prices.
 
Icaras said:
Or, you could say, half the amount of money you spend today will get you an SSD of the same storage, but with also improved technology next year, which is what I'm waiting for, and I bet the OP is too ;)

I really don't mind an 80GB SSD, but I do mind the current high prices.
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Yeah, I think Im gonna stick with you. Wait until next year when hopefully we can get a better one for the same price.
 
simplymuzik3 said:
Yeah, I think Im gonna stick with you. Wait until next year when hopefully we can get a better one for the same price.
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Argh, yea, I really want one now though, but the price is just a tad too high for comfort for me. By the way, I made a similar thread on this same topic not too long ago. I got some really great and insightful responses on the outlook of the next generation of Intel SSDs in there. I think you might find it of your interest:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/841591/
 
SSD Performance Degradation

I bought an SSD early last year. There are still performance degradation issues (they are all over the internet). Super Talent has recently come out with a SSD that does not degrade over time and hopefully the other manufacturers will follow. Here's the link:

http://www.supertalent.com/products/ssd_category_detail.php?type=TeraDrive

I wish I would've waited but am definitely going to buy another SSD once the performance degradation issues have been solve but right now, it's a lot to spend if it's performance (speed) doesn't hold up over time. Supposedly Windows 7 has a TRIM utility that helps prevent the performance degradation but I don't think it's been implemented. I have not heard of any utility in present Mac OS that does this.
 
Great, thanks for the insight!
Thanks @Icaras for showing me that thread! Really appreciate it! :)
 
While every year you wait will be better from a price/performance ratio, there is a TON of performance to be had from a ssd today. The G1 intel drives received a firmware update that largely mitigated the performance degradation. I've used one for a year with Windows and performance is not noticeably changed from day 1. The G2 drives support TRIM which has been implemented in Windows 7, meaning that the drives don't degrade at all over time. Not sure when Apple will get around to supporting this.

In any case, while somewhat expensive, when thought of as a performance upgrade, there is really nothing else that matches a ssd on the market today. You could wait forever to buy a new computer, too, because there will always be a better model just around the corner. That doesn't mean we don't buy and benefit from the performance that is available TODAY.
 
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