SSD Prices Continue 3-Year Plunge 347
Lucas123 writes "After dropping 20% in the second quarter of 2012 alone, SSD prices fell another 10% in the second half of the year. 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 IHS and other research firms. For some models, the prices have dropped 300% over the past three years. At the same time, hard disk drive prices have remained "inflated" — about 47% higher than they were prior to the 2011 Thai floods, according to DRAMeXchange."
prices have dropped 300%.... (Score:5, Informative)
Great, so this means that in 2012, to get some SSD disk you will be paid twice the price you would have paid to get them in 2009 ?
Sounds interesting, just the kind of storage I need for my perpetual motion simulations !
Re:WTF?!?!?! (Score:5, Informative)
Here are the hard numbers for anyone who's curious:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/881-7/components-returns-rates-7.html [behardware.com]
- Intel 0.45% (against 1.73%)
- Samsung 0.48% (N/A)
- Corsair 1.05% (against 2.93%)
- Crucial 1.11% (against 0.82%)
- OCZ 5.02% (against 7.03%)
Return rates specifically for OCZ models:
- 40.00% for the OCZ Petrol 64 GB
- 39.42% for the OCZ Petrol 128 GB
- 30.85% for the OCZ Octane 128 GB SATA II
- 29.46% for the OCZ Octane 64 GB SATA II
- 9.73% for the OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB 3.5"
- 9.59% for the OCZ Vertex 2 120 GB
- 6.73% for the OCZ Vertex 2 60 GB
- 5.43% for the OCZ Agility 3 240 GB
- 5.12% for the OCZ Vertex Plus 128 GB
Also if you have a Crucial M4 make sure you have the correct firmware [anandtech.com] as Crucial keeps releasing/shipping units with buggy firmware updates that can brick your drive.
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Can't wait (Score:4, Informative)
I've had bad experiences with busses before, but I've never owned a bus.
the article is worth what you pay for it (Score:5, Informative)
"The better deals for SSDs are now around 80- to 90-cents-per-gigabyte of capacity"? Where's this guy been?
The better deals for SSDs are now close to 50 cents a gigabyte. Two months ago I picked up four 128GB Samsung 830s for $70 each. This past month I've seen a PNY 120GB for $70, an Intel 160GB for $90, and the 128GB Samsung for $70 again. Better deals on larger SSDs (over 200GB) are now 70 cents and less - Newegg just had the a 500GB Samsung 840 for $330 (66 cents/GB).
Re:WTF?!?!?! (Score:4, Informative)
We've been over this at some point... OCZ has a greater volume of sales generating higher return rates, it's a rule of QC. Crucial (#1 lowest returns) has relatively minor sales in comparison so not as many are shipping out that can fail.
What? Higher sales generates higher returns in absolute quantity, not in terms of return rates. Return rates are a percentage, and are independent of the quantity shipped (although a larger shipped quantity means the rates will more accurately reflect actual failure percentages).
Re:You'll be waiting a long time (Score:4, Informative)
Using the phrase "spinning rust" the first time was clever.
Using it the next four times was just pretentious and annoying. Just use the term "HDD" like everyone else if you want to refer to them more than once.
Re:You'll be waiting a long time (Score:5, Informative)
You sound like a dork writing "spinning rust" repeatedly.
Re:You'll be waiting a long time (Score:5, Informative)
Thing is, everything else doesn't have to follow Moore's Law - spinning rust has been growing faster than Moore's Law for a little while now.
Have they been? WD announced 2TB drives in early January 2009. WD announced 4TB drives in late November 2012. That's a period of 34.5 months to double capacity, and launch pricing was roughly $400 in both cases.
Moore's Law as it is currently accepted says we should see doublings every 18-24 months (18 months is for doubled performance, 24 months is for doubled transistor count), so it's clear that HDDs are improving at a rate much slower than Moore's Law, not faster as you claim.
SSDs, on the other hand... The Intel x25-m came out in late 2008 at an MSRP of $1,190 for the 160GB model. Today I've seen the Intel 330 180GB as low as $90. Per-gig, that's $7.4375/GB -> $0.50/GB, or 14.875x improvement in price.
That's 3.9 doublings over the course of 4 years. So SSDs are improving much faster than Moore's law, while HDDs are improving much slower than Moore's law.
Without significant changes in the improvement rates, SSDs will become cheaper per-gig than HDDs in less than four years.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You'll be waiting a long time (Score:2, Informative)
A real dork would probably know that rust - spinning or not - is not ferromagnetic, and would be rather sub-optimal for a harddrive.