Who feels the SSD prices are currently too high?

[apolloa]

Simple question really. I think I am going to skip on an SSD this time round. I need one that's bigger then 256GB but I feel the cost of a 500GB model, even the cost I can get one for is just too much. It's over a third of the overall cost of the machine.
I see that Intel do not make a big enough size and it's hit and miss with OCZ and Mac OSX, but then again it costs $$$ for a big enough model.

So just wondering who else feels the same way? Are you skipping it this time and waiting to see if prices drop and sizes increase in 3 years?
It's not too bad as I can replace the HDD with an SSD myself.

 

[glavoie84]

It always depends on your needs. I thought $250 was a good deal last summer for a 80GB X25-M and I'm still happy with the price I paid. I have only half of it filled and I don't need much more space. If I need to move a lot of stuff, an external USB 2.5" drive does the trick for me.

 

[singhjeet29]

New tech will always be expensive, before it goes mainstream. Unfortunately SSD is far from mainstream! Therefore it will remain expensive for some time! Although getting slightly cheaper from year to year, it'll still be much much higher than an equivalent (space-wise) HDD for some time.

 

[ZTuned]

I'm definitely not willing to pay the premium price for being an early adopter. Especially when you consider how fast prices will drop as SSD's become more commonplace. 256 GB is the bare minimum amount of space I need and the prices are just astronomical for the "premium" SSD's.

When prices are slashed in half, then I'll consider picking one up. But for now, my 500 GB 7200 is just fine.

 

[Bill Gates]

I'm waiting for the prices to drop. Until I can get a high-end 256GB SSD for ~$400, I'll keep waiting.

 

[apw100]

I'm just going to get a 60GB SSD to use as a system drive(OSX and programs) I will be replace the seldom used Superdrive with a 500GB drive for content such as audio, video and photos.

 

[bella92108]

Not sure why people complain about tech costs. It's just like anything ... remember when the Toyota Prius came out? It was selling for MSRP and there was a waiting list. Remember when MP3 came out? Probably not since it was Diamond Rio first, which was $599 for an 8 MEGabyte player... it's always supply\demand, and when something new comes out and there's not a lot of demand, production costs are high, etc, it's expensive. It will come down, but then the time you wait for it to come down is the cost of being an early adopter.

Most people don't buy things when they first come out. I do because I like having the latest and greatest, but I pay a premium for it. To each his own, but don't complain because the manufacturer wants to profit for being first to the plate with a product. If YOU put time and effort into developing and marketing a product, wouldn't you want to make as much as people are willing to pay for the fruits of your labor? And would you rather sell 10 units at $100 or 100 units at $10? Of course you'd rather sell less units with higher price because it cost less to manufacture, distribute, and support fewer units. that's why Apple's stock is at $225 and HP's stock is at $46 a share. It's an exact comparison.

The prices will come down when enough manufacturers are making them to saturate the market and create competition. Right now it's the Crucial\Samsung\Intel\Corsair game...

 

[apolloa]

I wasn't complaining, just saying that they are at present they cost too much. I fully appreciate the price premium for being the first users.
I am wondering what will happen with the Intel drives. I read last year I think that they were going to launch bigger sizes but they haven't.
If I did decide to get an SSD of 500GB, I think it would take me another 3 or 4 months to save on top of the original cost so by then we'll be looking at the next refresh.

 

[BlizzardBomb]

Flash prices have been stuck at around the same point for many months now because of many factors to do with supply and demand. It's unlikely we'll see the rate of drops we saw in the past any time soon again.

that's why Apple's stock is at $225 and HP's stock is at $46 a share. It's an exact comparison.

Except you can't directly compare stock prices like that. Microsoft's stock is at $28 so they must be doing worse than HP according to that analogy.

 

[brand]

that's why Apple's stock is at $225 and HP's stock is at $46 a share. It's an exact comparison.

And if AAPL split?

 

[bella92108]

And if AAPL split?

I suppose I should have clarified for those people who don't understand the market. (Value of stock x number of outstanding shares)...

 

[bella92108]

Flash prices have been stuck at around the same point for many months now because of many factors to do with supply and demand. It's unlikely we'll see the rate of drops we saw in the past any time soon again.



Except you can't directly compare stock prices like that. Microsoft's stock is at $28 so they must be doing worse than HP according to that analogy.

MSFT has been hurting. Has AAPL?

 

[apolloa]

Flash prices have been stuck at around the same point for many months now because of many factors to do with supply and demand. It's unlikely we'll see the rate of drops we saw in the past any time soon again.

That doesn't sound hopeful LOL. I just use my computer for the general stuff and will play my Steam games on it. I won't miss an SSD I don't think for the moment, it's not like the computer is slow. I would also like more choice of drive. Have drives of 320 or 500GB from Intel etc to choose from.

 

[skiltrip]

They are too high for me at the moment for sure. I mean, I could stretch and get one, but the one I could afford wouldn't be enough storage for what I need. Unless I worked pretty much exclusively off an external hard-drive. But that sort of thing takes the mobility out of owning a laptop. When they get bigger and cheaper I'll jump in. I realize I might be waiting quite a while though.

 

[nuckinfutz]

The question is "why do you need bigger than 256MB of SSD storage?

That's a shatload of storage. Another question is "where exactly should SSD be priced at, respective of their performance, in $/Gigabyte?"

 

[Mirabella]

Right now, the price for SSD technology is too high for me, and the sizes are still borderline too-small. I'm sorely tempted – which probably indicates that they're just a little too high for my price tolerance, even if I'd rather they were much less expensive. I'll likely buy an SSD within a year.

I won't say that I think that the prices are outright too high. Value is subjective; some will surely feel that they are worth it. Considering what a big difference they seem to make in terms of computer performance, and considering their price relative to other ways to gain a similar performance boost for your computer (faster chip, more RAM, etc.), the prices don't seem out of line. Add in the possible improved durability, quiet, and battery life which can come from getting rid of the moving parts in a hard drive, and the prices for SSDs, again, don't seem out of line.

I don't begrudge them the high prices. I appreciate that that the R&D costs are high, the technology is new, and the market is small. I expect the prices will drop substantially, in time. I remember buying a 512 megabyte compact flash card for around $275, about eight or ten years ago. I remember, about 5 or perhaps 7 years ago, reading about the announcement at COMDEX for the introduction of 8 gigabyte compact flash cards; I forget the exact price, but I think it was around $10,000 for an 8 gig card. More recently, however, I saw 4 GB CF cards selling for $40 - with a FULL rebate, making the cards essentially free, other than the costs for shipping. The other day, at Fry's Electronics, I saw a 32GB SD card for sale for $79. Similarly, I expect the prices for SSDs will drop greatly, within a few years.

I am a little surprised that some company with deep pockets isn't selling them more affordably, as a loss-leader, to speed up market adoption and to build a dominant market position.

Oh, well. I'll just have to wait a little while longer.

 

[apolloa]

The question is "why do you need bigger than 256MB of SSD storage?

That's a shatload of storage. Another question is "where exactly should SSD be priced at, respective of their performance, in $/Gigabyte?"

I need more because my MB Pro is my ONLY computer so it's used for everything. Videos, photos, music, games etc etc
I'd be happy with 320GB as I have now but Intel don't make one. 256 is just too small really.
I would pay about £400 to £500 for a 500GB model. Still a lot of money but way less then it costs now.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Ok thanks for the response.

It's hard to get a sense for context sometimes when talking about SSD. One of the reasons is that people tend to confuse them with general storage.

If I need 320GB of storage that doesn't need to offer exemplary performance my solutions is probably $60 for a 7200rpm SATA drive.

If I need that 320GB to be top shelf in speed then my price goes up. For instance if we wanted the fastest rotational speed for a HDD drive we've be looking at something like a Savvio 15.2 15k drive

And we'd be limited to paying $1.5 or so per GB and 146GB for a drive under $300.

If I'm a SSD vendor I know my drive crushes the Savvio 15k drive in many benchmarks (latency, power consumption, random read/write) so the question is exactly how to I price my drive? I personally don't think there is a whole lot of margin in SSD. Not until they reduce the process and yields go up.

Me i'm thinking that all of my future Macs will have SSD in them. I'm willing to put up with an external drive for mass storage. I'm tired of waiting for the computer to boot, launch apps etc. I'm spoiled by my iPad which is ready at a moments notice.

 

[Maverick713]

I'm definitely not willing to pay the premium price for being an early adopter. Especially when you consider how fast prices will drop as SSD's become more commonplace. 256 GB is the bare minimum amount of space I need and the prices are just astronomical for the "premium" SSD's.

When prices are slashed in half, then I'll consider picking one up. But for now, my 500 GB 7200 is just fine.

+1

 

[butterfly0fdoom]

I am a little surprised that some company with deep pockets isn't selling them more affordably, as a loss-leader, to get help speed up market adoption and to build a dominant market position.

Kensington has their V series. I mean, it's certainly not "affordable" in absolute terms, but relative to other SSDs of the same capacity, it's pretty cheap. At least, I felt the price wasn't outrageous (I ended up buying one, and it's awesome).

 

[vty]

Almost nobody needs anything larger than a 60g SSD. If you're planning on storing tons of movies, audio, you do NOT need to place them on an SSD. You're prefectly fine using a USB or generic platter HDD and using the SSD for things that you will notice daily, the system drive, CAD, renderings, etc.

No one is going to say that the prices for SSDs are perfect or great, but the performance gain is DEFINITELY worth the $150-220 right now for the 60g. Sure, you could wait until Q4 when you can have a 250g for the same price; but who knows if that will actually happen.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Almost nobody needs anything larger than a 60g SSD. If you're planning on storing tons of movies, audio, you do NOT need to place them on an SSD. You're prefectly fine using a USB or generic platter HDD and using the SSD for things that you will notice daily, the system drive, CAD, renderings, etc.

No one is going to say that the prices for SSDs are perfect or great, but the performance gain is DEFINITELY worth the $150-220 right now for the 60g. Sure, you could wait until Q4 when you can have a 250g for the same price; but who knows if that will actually happen.

I've got 30GB of music, 3GB of pictures, 11GB of apps , 10GB of videos and clips etc. I have filled just a third of my 320GB HDD. I could stand to use some pruning as well.

I'm not sacrificing performance because I want to store a bunch of videos. Consumers need to get into the concept of tiering their storage. You place the stuff that loves fast storage on the fast stuff and place the stuff that couldn't care less about SSD performance on the slower spinning discs.

The problem with SSD is that some people are stuck into thinking about storage from simply a sizing point of view rather than performance. SSD are about performance and eventually the size will catch up but even then it's incumbent upon you to decide what items need to go where.

If you have a Quad Core Mac/PC then you need a SSD even more because contention for RAM and storage becomes even more paramount.

I don't think SSD pricing is anymore outrageous than someone spending $1800 for a new computer and hobbling it with a slow spinning disc. That's "pennywise pound foolish"

 

[vty]

Yeah, really.

For $1800 for the MBP 15"; Apple could have easily thrown people a small 60-80g SSD instead of the stupid 5400 rpm platter. It's such a joke that they didn't.

Hell, the Vaio Z comes with 2 SSDs in raid-0 for the same price.

And here come the "dey took er jerbs!" "But it comes with OSX!" guys.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Yeah, really.

For $1800 for the MBP 15"; Apple could have easily thrown people a small 60-80g SSD instead of the stupid 5400 rpm platter. It's such a joke that they didn't.

Hell, the Vaio Z comes with 2 SSDs in raid-0 for the same price.

And here come the "dey took er jerbs!" "But it comes with OSX!" guys.

Really they need to yank the God awful "NOT so Superdrive" and allow for a second drive bay.

Cool thing about SSD is that you get the same speed regardless of size so even a 1.8" SSD can perform like a 2.5" SSD.

 

[Eric5273]

I just ordered a 13" MBP with a 128GB SSD. The upgrade price was around $300 over the standard 250GB HD. If I had needed more space, I definitely would not have gone the SSD route. But even though this is my only computer, I am not one to accumulate too much media on my computer, and the rest of my files don't take up much space.

My current computer that I am going to sell is an original MBA with a 80GB HD. When I got this one, the price for the SSD was $1k for a 64GB SSD. So for that price, I passed and settled for the HD. But for $300 extra, I decided to spend the money this time.