Price of SSDs "in a free fall" says report

by Mark Tyson on 22 June 2015, 10:06

Tags: HGST, Intel (NASDAQ:INTC), Toshiba (TYO:6502), SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK), Samsung (005935.KS)

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We have commented upon the downward price trends and the upwards capacity trends of SSDs more than once before. Most recently HEXUS covered the carefully worded prediction that SSDs would be a more economical solution than HDDs by 2016. Now it looks like the price of SSDs is "in a free fall", according to a new InformationWeek report by Jim O'Reilly.

There are a number of factors that are influencing the market to bring these price drops. O'Reilly suggests that the widespread adoption of 3D NAND and excellent die yields are allowing the flash industry to both increase capacity and drop prices. He notes that at least one company, SanDisk, is preparing 8TB SSDs this year and 16TB SSDs in 2016. Other recent reports have suggested SSD capacities will reach 30TB by 2018.

It was only earlier this month that HGST announced the world's first 10TB HDD. However to get to that capacity the manufacturer is pushing the limits of HDD technology combining two density boosting technologies; SMR and HelioSeal. Even then, the resulting HDD required a custom software stack which enterprises would have to put together themselves.

With 3D NAND adoption only just beginning and price cuts from its economies of scale only just starting to bite, perhaps the end is nigh for HDDs in consumer systems. You still get 2.5-inch HDDs in the majority of lower/mid priced laptops on sale, for example. With SSDs reaching price parity, or even undercutting such devices next year, the budget laptop buyer especially will be saved from losing hours of their life staring at loading screens.

The next step up in 2.5-inch SSD capacity is expected in July when the Fixstars SSD-6000M is expected to become available. It was launched in early May.



HEXUS Forums :: 36 Comments

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I have already given up on HDDs in my computers. HDD still have their uses - my NAS is a prime example where multi-TB capacity is vital. Even for a gaming PC, I cannot see why I need an HDD.

The interesting thing though is that if we end up with 30TB SDDs at reasonable cost, maybe even RAID 5/6 NAS becomes an unnecessary luxury - simple mirror would be sufficient
As above, really. My main PC has no HDDs in there, just a bank of SSDs - I still have HDDs in the NAS box though.
I would love to go pure SSD and can see it happening soon (just not yet on my finances). Can't wait until a 1tb SSD hits parity with HDD!
cjs150
Even for a gaming PC, I cannot see why I need an HDD.
You fair enough, but other people can't afford one of the current 1TB SSD's, or can't setup a RAID (e.g. laptop) or can't downsize their content enough to squeeze into the SSD space that they can afford.

Before everyone gets washed away on a wave of geek-drool at the thought of these large SSD's - remember that the really large kit is “enterprise only”, so you're talking about astronomical price tags. Second thing, those with decent memories will remember the problems that have been with SSD's - first OCZ having a terrible rep for failures and more recently the issues with the Samsung 840 EVO's. Sure there's been similar screw ups with the HDDs way back (IBM Deathstars) but modern ones are pretty darned good.

So personally speaking, while I can't wait to replace my remaining boot/app/user HDD with an SSD, I think it'd be a bit premature at the moment. As cheesemp says, when we're talking about a small premium for the SSD then I'm in - but at the moment a terabyte disk you're talking about paying about £200 for the non-spinner. Other thing I want to do is decent consumer-grade disks above that 1TB threshold.

One point that I can't help wondering about - if SSD's are going to more or less replace HDD's in the low- to medium-capacity ranges, does that mean we'll see a dropping of price of the large size HDD's? Wouldn't mind a 4TB (or larger?) WD Green for my in-box backups.
In a free fall? Oh really?

So how much have they dropped in the last week?

They are NOT in free fall yet at all.