So what is the current trend like? When will we start seeing affordable SSDs? I keep hearing things about price drops and flash memory becoming cheaper; just curious on whether we'll start to see larger capacity or cheapter (or both) solid state drives sometime later this year.
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SSD price drops
- Thread starter Daveecee
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The price will probably not drop much this year. I can see SSD's becoming as affordable as current HDD's by 2011/2012. In 2010 the price will come down and new technology will be out preparing for the years to come after. Don't expect prices to fall dramatically this year.
I think prices will drop very quickly.
For one, SSDs are really just transistors and controllers. The transistors still obey Moore's Law, as far as I know.
And the controllers should come down quickly, too. There are a lot of players in this field, but it's still early. Drive manufacturers are learning the intricacies of SSD drives. Just look at all the firmware updates for the Intel and OCZ Vertex drives.
Right now there are only three good choices for SSD drives. Intel, Samsung, and OCZ. Over the next 6 months the rest of 'em are going to figure out how to make "good enough" SSDs, which means something that blows away any spinning disk HD (particularly 2.5" laptop drives). That's going to put price pressure on the three competent manufacturers mentioned above to lower their prices. Besides which, those 3 will continue to make better drives, which will drive the price of their current state of the art down.
Here's my bottom line prediction: that 120 GB OCZ Vertex drive that is going for $350 today on NewEgg will be damn close to 100 bucks before the end of calendar '09. The Intel X25-M 160 GB will be closer to $250-300 (today it's about $700).
For one, SSDs are really just transistors and controllers. The transistors still obey Moore's Law, as far as I know.
And the controllers should come down quickly, too. There are a lot of players in this field, but it's still early. Drive manufacturers are learning the intricacies of SSD drives. Just look at all the firmware updates for the Intel and OCZ Vertex drives.
Right now there are only three good choices for SSD drives. Intel, Samsung, and OCZ. Over the next 6 months the rest of 'em are going to figure out how to make "good enough" SSDs, which means something that blows away any spinning disk HD (particularly 2.5" laptop drives). That's going to put price pressure on the three competent manufacturers mentioned above to lower their prices. Besides which, those 3 will continue to make better drives, which will drive the price of their current state of the art down.
Here's my bottom line prediction: that 120 GB OCZ Vertex drive that is going for $350 today on NewEgg will be damn close to 100 bucks before the end of calendar '09. The Intel X25-M 160 GB will be closer to $250-300 (today it's about $700).
Basically, nobody knows. New technology is discovered all the time. The technology to make these drives cheaper may be here this year or many years after.
It's got nothing to do with new technology, it's all about market-place adoption. Once SSDs become more mainstream, the prices will drop.
+1 for Lord Patton
As the fab process for NAND decreases and density goes up yields improve. This means lower SSD costs.
No the most amazing thing that few talking about is this.
The #1 and #2 HDD makers in the world (Seagate and Western Digital) are not making SSD yet.
Western Digital just bought a SSD company for $65 million signaling their intent to hop into this market.
Seagate, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't played their hand. You know SSD will be mainstream when these two giants have fully fleshed out lines of SSD.
Also make sure you're not comparing SSD to 7200rpm drives. Today's SSD are more comparable to 10k and 15k drives which carry a premium so the pricing delta really isn't as far off as people think when price/performance is taken into account.
As the fab process for NAND decreases and density goes up yields improve. This means lower SSD costs.
No the most amazing thing that few talking about is this.
The #1 and #2 HDD makers in the world (Seagate and Western Digital) are not making SSD yet.
Western Digital just bought a SSD company for $65 million signaling their intent to hop into this market.
Seagate, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't played their hand. You know SSD will be mainstream when these two giants have fully fleshed out lines of SSD.
Also make sure you're not comparing SSD to 7200rpm drives. Today's SSD are more comparable to 10k and 15k drives which carry a premium so the pricing delta really isn't as far off as people think when price/performance is taken into account.
There is no reason why they should go into this market as of yet. SSD is an expensive alternative as of now with a lot of R&D behind it. HDD is a proven technology. VHS, while now a thing of the relative past, remained dominant for several years even after DVDs first hit the market.
Until it is a proven commodity that can be mass-produced, the big manufacturers aren't going to jump on board. It's all about risk mitigation.
You mean the big manufacturer being Seagate. Western Digital has played their hand
http://www.dailytech.com/Western+Digital+Buys+SiliconSystems+Enters+SSD+Market/article14712.htm
By 2011 SSD will be fairly mainstream is my prediction. Laptop vendors are already looking to size the missing performance they lost with slower HDD.
The future is bright for both technologies. I see even the home user become familiar with tiering their storage. Network Attached Storage will continue to be installed into homes in increasing numbers and that is where 2TB drives and above will be used to storage massive amounts of media. SSD will take over for the Boot drive duties.