When's the time to buy ssd?

[JJimmyJ]

Hello

Bought a crucial M4 128gb for my laptop back in January. Since then the price has come down ~£50!!!
Is there something new on the horizon? Should I wait another month or two or just jump in and get one for my desktop?

P.S. Just seen a 256gb for sale at 179.99!!!

Arghhh!!!!

[Smudger]

I'm going to wait until you can get 256gb under £100. It'll be just about to do that when a factory that makes things that go in every SSD burns to the ground and the price goes up again...

[GoNz0]

if your on about the 256gb m4 from dabs put april10 in the voucher box for another tenner off.

[iranu]

I'm in the same boat - just waiting a bit longer to see what's round the corner. Prices seem to be dropping daily. One of the most over looked drives is the Sandisk extreme. These are now going very cheap.

Scan 128Gb £84.14

Scan 256Gb £163.49

I'm looking at either the Sandisk, M4 or Samsung 830. Just waiting to see if the 830 drops in price.

[Am*]

Now's the time to buy SSDs, but only ones around the 60GB mark. Any larger ones lose far more value WAY quicker.

[Jaylesh]

I am going to wait until the prices start to stay at a low price and then get a higher capacity SSD. I still think128gb will fill up far too fast and I'd end up buying another.

[AlexGTR]

Last week there were some big price drops on 60gb and 120gb drives of various makes.

[chrestomanci]

I have been looking to buy a SSD for my linux home server for the past couple of moths. I was thinking that I squeese my data a bit so that it would fit onto a 60Gb model.

Now that prices are coming down so fast, I am thinking that it would be wiser to wait another month or so, and then buy a 120Gb one, as that way if the SSD does not give the performance boost I am hoping for, I can take it out again and put it in my desktop instead.

Does anyone know why SSD prices have dropped so much in the past few weeks? is it just a price war, or is there a lot of over capacity out there?

[Saracen]

I am going to wait until the prices start to stay at a low price and then get a higher capacity SSD. I still think128gb will fill up far too fast and I'd end up buying another.

I'd say that depends what you want an SSD for.

If it's a laptop, and therefore probably the only drive, then fair enough.

But if it's a desktop, then the odds are that unless your storage requirements are fairly low, you'll still need an HD for extra capacity.

Right now, and probably for a long time to come, SSD prices per GB are going to remain hugely higher than HDs, though the difference is dropping. My main machines has several TB of storage on it and the cost of doing that in SSD would be vast. Therefore, for me, an SSD is about performance, not storage.

And that means the machine will stay a hybrid of SSD and HD for the foreseeable future.

And that means that what size SSD I'd need would depend entirely on what I put on it, because putting everything on SSD is not going to be cost-effective any time soon.

So .... whether I'd need 60GB, 120GB or more entirely depends on that calculation, which means working out the demands of :-

1) OS
2) Apps that I need SSD performance from
3) what data, if any, really needs to be on SSD rather than HD.

My conclusion is that while 60GB is perhaps a bit tight, 120GB will do all I need to do and that any extra benefit from more than that is minimal, and therefore not worth the cost increase.

It's obviously a personal evaluation and decision, but "buy now or wait" seems to me to depend entirely on what the drive will be used in, what will be expected to go on it, and a personal assessment of the expected performance gains compared to cost.

And if you wait, maybe for quite a while, you could be foregoing 95% of the benefit in performance for that time, for the sake of getting 100% later.

[mikerr]

The time is now - you won't regret it once you feel the speed.

[kalniel]

About 1pm is quite good, as there's still a good chance you'll get it delivered in time for the next day

[Scainer]

I just dropped in a Sammy 830 and I think the cost premium over a HDD is worth it, but the price drops are annoying. I used the VAT back offer before the price reductions and now i'm avoiding looking at the prices. I think I should have really gone with the M4 as it would have saved me £30 - £40 which is the cost of Norton Ghost which I didn't use anyway.

As with all technology if you buy now you will be losing money (with better round the corner), but if you don't, you won't gain the benefits of the current tech.

[Saracen]

The time is now - you won't regret it once you feel the speed.

It's very subjective, and will vary from person to person. Some will feel that (and given the nature of this forum, probably more than average here will) but not everyone will agree. You might well not regret it, but for others, the difference in speed just doesn't justify the (admittedly dropping) cost). The only person that can make that call is the one about to spend the money .... which is hard, as they won't know the benefit until they do.

Also, of course, to some people, spending £600 on an iPad is an impulse buy. Hell, for some, £50k on a new Mercedes is an impulse buy. For others, £70-£100 on an SSD will mean saving for weeks/months, and even then, means there's something else they forego because the money only spends once.

[JJimmyJ]

Well the prices seem to have stabilised slightly. I think I'll just pull the trigger.
As Scainer says 'As with all technology if you buy now you will be losing money'. I just wish they'd stop for a breather so I could enjoy being mainstream for more than a week.
Ok, Crucial M4, Vertex 4 or Samsung? Hmmmmm, decisions, decisions...

[chrestomanci]

Ok, Crucial M4, Vertex 4 or Samsung? Hmmmmm, decisions, decisions...

Scandisc?

120Gb Ultra for £65 on Scan Today only. It only has SATA 2 mind.

or the Extreme for £80. Acording to StorageReview.com it is substantaly better performing that alternative SSDs in that price bracket.

[bennyboy32]

I'm interested in buying my first SSD, can anyone recommend a good 120GB model? looks like crucial m4 has good reviews. thanks