News - SSDs could fall below $1 per GB by the end of the year

[HEXUS]

Flash-based drives to become more affordable, but can they compete with HDDs?

Read more.

[Percy1983]

For the price of 2x500Gb Hd's in a raid 0 I can't see me going SSD anytime soon.

[AdamAnubis]

I think once a high performance (not top, just a decent one) ~40GB drive comes about for under £40 I may start considering getting one as a boot drive and sorting the PC out, but at the same time I'd probably buy another storage HDD as they're equally as attractive price wise.

[Saracen]

Flash-based drives to become more affordable, but can they compete with HDDs?

On cost per megabyte, not any time soon, no. With a 1TB HDD currently at about the same price (£50-ish) as predicted for a 30GB SSD assuming the fall occurs as expected, you still have a 30x-ish cost factor.

So for most people, for mass storage, no, they can't compete. Not now, not after this change, probably not for quite a long time and perhaps (though I wouldn't bet on it) not ever.

But mass storage isn't what most people buy SSDs for. They're bought either as performance enhancers, like boot drives, or for specific purposes (like low weight, power consumption and resilience) in devices like netbooks and some laptops. For that latter type of purpose, yes, a large reduction in cost will change the calculation for a lot of people.

Are people prepared to pay for faster booting, faster app-loading times, etc? Yes. The issue is ... "how much will they pay?" And that depends on how affluent they are, how badly they want or need reduced boot and load times, etc, and how much they just want an SSD because it's the latest gimmick.

They cheaper they get, the easier it is to just indulge in what for many may well be an impulse purchase, something they want not something they need. At £50, I probably would. At £150, I certainly won't. And as price has been coming down, so I've been getting closer and closer. Of course, now that this type of price drop is being openly discussed, a lot of people of my frame of mind will be waiting for the drop to occur, so it may even be that we see a reduction in impulse purchases with people (like me) waiting on the drop.

So will they compete? Not as main system drives, no, not unless the price/MB drops hugely from where it is now. The drive for multimedia, the apparently ever increasing requirements for storage for music, photos, video clips, large games and even full-blown DVD rips ensures that they wont be competitive for actually replacing HDD storage entirely until the price/MB comes at least somewhere close to HDD levels and I don't see that happening any time soon. An increasing number of systems will have an SSD, and it may well become commonplace, or even a standard configuration, but they wont replace HDDs for a long time, or until a radical change in price/capacity.

[cameronlite]

Im quite interested in the HDD/SDD hybrid that was mentioned a while ago...

[TheAnimus]

will tape ever be fully replaced by hard drives?

[directhex]

will tape ever be fully replaced by hard drives?

On cost per megabyte, not any time soon, no. With a 1.6TB LTO4 currently at about the same price (£25-ish) as for a 80GB HDD assuming the fall occurs as expected, you still have a 20x-ish cost factor.


So for most people, for mass storage, no, they can't compete. Not now, not after this change, probably not for quite a long time and perhaps (though I wouldn't bet on it) not ever.

[miniyazz]

On cost per megabyte, not any time soon, no. With a 1.6TB LTO4 currently at about the same price (£25-ish) as for a 80GB HDD assuming the fall occurs as expected, you still have a 20x-ish cost factor.

No offence, but that's a silly comparison. You can buy a 2TB drive for <£80 now without trying too hard - using your figure for tape (as I have little idea), HDDs are 2.5xish as expensive. Plus don't you need expensive outlay for tape? i.e. reading/writing equipment being expensive (£10s/100s)?

[Hottentot]

Read more.

Flash-based drives to become more affordable, but can they compete with HDDs?

They have already competed with HDDs and soundly beaten them, but only on speed.

I decided not to get one until I could comfortably fit my OS and all my apps (office,photoshop etc) onto an SSD that would cost £100. I have taken the plunge with a 60GB Corsair F60.

The next target is to wait until I can fit all my games (100GB) onto an SSD that only costs £50.

Looks like I won't have long to wait.

I'm quite happy with HDD for storing films, music, photos and backups.

Its a perfect combination.

PS
I also use a RAM drive to take some of the write loads off the SSD.

Yo

[cordas]

However, senior analyst Michael Yang thinks it may be too little, too late, commenting that "traditional HDDs gained a lot of additional ground during the past few years in terms of rising capacity and falling prices. In fact, HDDs have gained so much ground that SSDs now are in danger of never regaining their competitive footing".

Sorry but what? I think there will be a market for both types of drives, SSDs are significantly quicker than HDDs and are great for 'instant on' products such as PDAs, smart phones and tablets, they also offer significant advantages for laptops. When it comes to the desktop market I think they with will be a niche product (but a large niche) where they are used in premium OEM machines and by hobbyists who want to speed up their machines which they can do significantly, when it comes to large data storage in the desktop market I suspect that will remain firmly in the grasp of HDDs for years to come (especially if the recent technologies talked about by Toshiba and Western Digital make it to market), as the need to store terabytes of data increases. I also have a sneaking suspicion that we will see MBs on the market before long that come with onboard SSDs both in the value OEM market and in the high end performance markets.

I would imagine that within 5 (10 at the outside) years you will struggle to buy any electronic device that doesn't have an SSD shoved in it somewhere.

As for me I am waiting for a fast SSD at around 128GB (enough for my OS, apps and games) for around £100 before I take the plunge, although to honest I will probably wait until I replace my MB and go Sata6G /USB3 all at the same time.

[Shooty*]

I'm sticking to my wax cylinders.

But seriously... Hell, yeah, as soon as SSD prices come down, I'm totally fitting my rigs out with them. My server, at 5tb, will probably still run on HDDs for the time being, but my HTPC is SSD, and I'd like my laptop and gaming rig to be as well.

The bloke in the article is talking rubbish.

So, what price? The quoted £0.64 gb sounds good.

[badass]

No offence, but that's a silly comparison. You can buy a 2TB drive for <£80 now without trying too hard - using your figure for tape (as I have little idea), HDDs are 2.5xish as expensive. Plus don't you need expensive outlay for tape? i.e. reading/writing equipment being expensive (£10s/100s)?

LTO4 drives cost upwards of £2000

[funke_munke]

I am also waiting for a £100 drive that can comftably store my c: partition of 100gb. Using conventional and cheap hdd for storage. But is there any word yet of the performance of tlc? I wont upgrade unless im getting a significant performance boost and get the feeling this could add to the cuorrent ssd confusion!

[young_one]

Whatever happened to the hybrid drives that were being talked about a few months ago?

Sounded pretty good to me, SSD for the boot partition and standard magnetic cylinders for mass storage in a single device.

[Shooty*]

Hybrid drives = everyone will think you own a Prius as well.

And NO ONE wants that. Unless you're Chris Martin.

[miniyazz]

On cost per megabyte, not any time soon, no. With a 1.6TB LTO4 currently at about the same price (£25-ish) as for a 80GB HDD assuming the fall occurs as expected, you still have a 20x-ish cost factor.


So for most people, for mass storage, no, they can't compete. Not now, not after this change, probably not for quite a long time and perhaps (though I wouldn't bet on it) not ever.

LTO4 drives cost upwards of £2000

unless badass you mean the tape recorder (if it's called that, lol) costs that much.

Also directhex, a quick Google suggests that LTO4 drives offer 800GB storage and that 2:1 compression brings it up to 1.6TB. By the same logic, surely HDDs could be similarly compressed and therefore offer more capacity for the money? Or is it a different form of compression, somehow?