Posted on 01/26/2019 8:07:27 AM PST by ShadowAce
For years SSD prices were annoyingly stable. Anyone looking to buy an SSD could rely on prices that hadn’t budged much since launch. Sure, you would see the occasional sale, but ongoing price drops for older drives were nowhere to be found.
Suddenly, that’s all changed. SSD prices are dropping like a stone. What gives? Is now the best time to buy an SSD?
The cause of this price drop is, as always, supply and demand. For some time, the supply of SSDs was restricted based on a shortage of available flash memory. But now, most fabs have completed the transition to 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory. This new NAND technology allows for denser storage and faster drives, increasing drive speed and capacity.
However, these new drives take time to make, and old drives don’t just disappear. Retailers still have a substantial stockpile of SSDs using the previous generation’s 32-layer 3D TLC NAND flash memory.
As such, prices are being slashed on SSDs with last-generation technology, including older but still excellent 32-layer 3D TLC NAND. Newer 64-layer NAND brings improvement to performance and power efficiency, but older 32-layer technology is inexpensive enough to provide compelling deals.
When you hear about price drops, it’s important to keep perspective in mind. A decrease of a few dollars probably won’t change your purchasing behavior. But a drop of a significant percentage of price can send you reaching for your wallet.
Using Camelcamelcamel we can see that SSD prices have plunged for the top selling SSDs on Amazon. The top seller, the Samsung EVO 860 500GB, has dropped 30 percent from its price at launch, a decrease of more than $50. If we look at a more recent stable price back in the spring, the drive’s price is still down more than 10 percent.
Other popular drives see similar decreases. In the last six months the WD Blue 500GB SSD has dropped $51 dollars, or 36 percent.
Most consumer 2.5-inch SATA SSDs have dropped their price as substantially, with some plunging even further. Even m.2 and NVMe devices, which have historically been resistant to price decreases, are showing the same downward trend.
If you’re still running your system off of a spinning hard drive, you won’t find a better time to buy. No matter what type of SSD you get, the performance increase will be noticeable and dramatic.
What if you own an older or smaller SSD that you want to upgrade? Now is a good time for you to buy as well. SSD speed will increase with the newest technology, but only on the margins. Maximum capacity is going to be the biggest difference between 32-layer and 64-layer 3D NAND, rather than speed. So if you want to jump from 256GB to 1TB, the market is ripe with deals.
If you have an SSD you’re happy with or you want to purchase an SSD larger than 2TB, hold your horses. The same goes for users who need the fastest drives. Unless you want to build a RAID0 array from SSDs, wait for 64-layer SSDs to hit the market and drop in price. If you’ve been longing for a 5TB SSD, that day is coming soon.
m.2 is the only way to go for desktops.
I don’t have any issues like that with windows 10. You may have some other underlying issues (like drivers).
Computer technology has always been high priced initially. Eventually, the prices drop.
My dept mgr bought one of the earlier desktop computer set-ups in 1981: TRS-80, Model II with 2 floppy drives, 64K RAM and a printer for $8000. My most recent laptop (Linux) purchase in 2017 came with 8Gb RAM and 1Tb hard drive and it cost $500.
Same with widescreen TVs. I bought a VIZIO 32’ 720p in 2008 for about $800. Today a TV with similar specs costs $99.
This ASUS has both. It’s a hybrid.
Save for later
Moores Law.
Economy of Scale.
Improved process and yields.
Question: how reliable is flash memory? Historically, flash memory was not that reliable over time and number of writes. Your typical file system/storage hardware can heal itself by replacing bad sectors with good. But that masks the underlying defect rate of the storage media.
One reason is that there is a industry-wide certification for portable batteries and drives in Japan called PSE that goes into effect Feb 1st. (All must carry the label) Any no-PSE device is unsellable so they’re trying to get rid of them now.
One of THE fastest computers I ever had was a middling AMD chip and Windows Vista that I bought from the bargain rack at Sam’s. Somehow they just clicked together. Not talking raw computing power, just absolute ease of interface use.
Actually I rsync to an external USB HDD (Passport) as a backup. ;-)
I thought I was that guy.
Of course they go bad fast than spinning drives. So, buy some backups. Or better yet have a spinning drive.
Great timing for this subject.
I just picked up a 128gb ssd, and am trying to figure out how to transfer windows 7 to it. Tried installing it with the original 7’s CD, but that just put a second OS in without all of the goodies that I have in my old OS. Have to format the ssd and try something else.
#12 Windows has to phone home to report on you.
I wish I was making a joke but I am not.
“Windows has to phone home to report on you.”
#12 about resources? or #13 about routing through MS and NSA? :)
Is anything truly obsolete if it works just fine in its intended role?
Speaking as somebody who has not yet upgraded: Will Win 10 work if not connected to the Internet? If so, how long before it complains you MUST connect to Internet in order to get updates (and "phone home" with all that it has recorded about you)?
As soon as you click on anything it tells you that “you are not connected to the internet”. Oh man, you will probably hate it, I did. From my personal experience, which was not very long before I rejected it, It is almost completely dependent on the internet, an account with Microsoft’s cloud, and paid subscriptions for online MS apps.
While you can download third party offline games and etc. and play CD’s and DVD’s, It doesn’t come with any “offline” software like MS office etc. You have to pay for these and go online to use them. It is basically just a smartphone/netbook hybrid dependent on the internet rather than a self contained offline PC.
Now if I am mistaken in my experience, I am open for criticism, but this was my very dissatisfying discovery and first experience.
That truly sucks. With my current laptop, I can get work done without internet connection while traveling.
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