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Solid-state drives price reduction?

M

Marsil

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 12, 2009
54
0
Looks like the price for solid-state upgrades have declined at the apple store.... or is it just my memory?
 
Hmmm, just been looking through the configuration options on the MBP and it seems that the higher priced model you get, the cheaper the SSD becomes...

NStocks
 
I was reading on some tech site the other day that the Intel SSDs have dropped in price a bit now, I think it was just under $400 for the 80Gb drive and there's some new SSDs coming from another brand about midway through the year that are under $300 for a 128Gb model but I can't find the link.

I wish I'd bookmarked it now.
 
If USB thumb drive prices vs. capacity are any indication, we will see significant capacity increase with price decrease over the next five years.
 
Random question on SSD: Can you switch a Mac to SSD even if that wasn't your original hardware? If so, essentially MacBooks now can be possibly upgraded significantly in a few years when they would be starting to slide to the bottom of the performance totem pole.
 
Why would SSD drives be so expensive other that they are a newer technology?
 
spacecadet610 said:
great news, but you can bet prices for SSD will drop even more..
82(2).gif
Click to expand...

Agreed, I think SSD will continue to slide in price as adoption increases.
 
wahoo10 said:
Random question on SSD: Can you switch a Mac to SSD even if that wasn't your original hardware? If so, essentially MacBooks now can be possibly upgraded significantly in a few years when they would be starting to slide to the bottom of the performance totem pole.
Click to expand...

Yes, just imagine it as any other harddrive. Same hookups, same form factor.
 
sushi said:
Since they have PATA or SATA interfaces, I would think that you could put one in the proper external enclosure.
Click to expand...

However an SSD would be useless as an external hard drive as far as speed goes. Only benefit I could see is that it is more reliable?
 
Chase R said:
However an SSD would be useless as an external hard drive as far as speed goes. Only benefit I could see is that it is more reliable?
Click to expand...

Esata? or even fw800 are both quick, won't max the SSD out, but they can try.
 
Putting a SSD into an external drive enclosure seems kind of pointless to me, the benefits are greatly reduced, and the price is sky high compared to traditional HDs, plus storage is almost minimal. Many HDs offer long warranties and are quite reliable...
 
Chase R said:
Ya they can try, but the person who said that they wanted an SSD in an external only has a MacBook... Complete waste if you ask me.
Click to expand...

I was only curious about if they made external SSD's....I don't want one for an external drive. I already have a 1TB external...don't need any more external drives. I just hadn't seen any external SSD's anywhere and wondered if they were even made.

I do plan on replacing my MacBook's internal HD with an SSD eventually.
 
By summer, they'll be affordable in a manner of speaking...

I found the details!

http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4478

Using multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory technology, SanDisk’s G3 Series establishes new benchmarks in performance and price-performance leadership in the SSD industry.

Designed as drop-in replacements for hard-disk drives (HDDs) in notebook PCs, the initial members in the SanDisk G3 family are SSD C25-G3 and SSD C18-G3 in the standard 2.5” and 1.8” form factors respectively, each available with a SATA-II interface. Available in capacities of 60, 120 and 240GB*, the unit MSRPs are $149, $249 and $499, respectively.
Click to expand...

If they either match or better the performance of the current Intel X25-M SSDs which also use MLC NAND flash memory then it's looking good because this review of the Intel SSDs really shows what a difference an SSD would make:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/Intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=8
 
MeatPie said:
Putting a SSD into an external drive enclosure seems kind of pointless to me, the benefits are greatly reduced, and the price is sky high compared to traditional HDs, plus storage is almost minimal. Many HDs offer long warranties and are quite reliable...
Click to expand...

Ya that's exactly what I was thinking.

However, after thinking about it, having a 2.5" external SSD would would be nice for a light and reliable portable drive... you don't have to worry about messing up the platters. Kinda pricey but if you got the money, why not? :D
 
barkmonster said:
I found the details!

http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4478



If they either match or better the performance of the current Intel X25-M SSDs which also use MLC NAND flash memory then it's looking good because this review of the Intel SSDs really shows what a difference an SSD would make:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/Intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3403&p=8
Click to expand...

I doubt they will with 200/140 read/write.

OCZ Summit with 210/172 read/write is pretty close, but it's still an engineering sample and still far off.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=666
 
dr. shdw said:
I doubt they will with 200/140 read/write.

OCZ Summit with 210/172 read/write is pretty close, but it's still an engineering sample and still far off.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=666
Click to expand...

It could force down the prices of the Intel drives and there's nothing to say Intel won't have larger drives by summer and even lower prices but given how well the Intel X25-M performs, it's surprising the see the specs from the pdf data sheet on the intel site:

http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/mainstream-sata-ssd-datasheet.pdf

Bandwidth Performance Specifications
—Sustained Sequential Read: Up to 250 MB/s
—Sustained Sequential Write: Up to 70 MB/s
Click to expand...
 
All these read and write speeds are fine, but unless you have a SATA-II controler in your computer it doesn't matter... I don't know about the new macbooks, but my only got a SATA-I controler, which means that hd-bandwidth maxes out a 150...

I do plan to buy a SSD later this year when the 250 gb ones comes out...
 
the Western zoo said:
All these read and write speeds are fine, but unless you have a SATA-II controler in your computer it doesn't matter... I don't know about the new macbooks, but my only got a SATA-I controler, which means that hd-bandwidth maxes out a 150...

I do plan to buy a SSD later this year when the 250 gb ones comes out...
Click to expand...

The new/er ones are SATA2.
 
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