Pure speculation on time to buy an SSD

Is there a price drop imminent on memory? Seems like as soon as I decide to buy something, the price drops, and everybody knew about it ahead of time but me ;-). I know no one has a crystal ball, but do any of you who follow this stuff think are we set for a sudden price drop on SSDs, or just buy the damn thing already?

 

Well, right now SSD prices are hovering somewhere around $0.70 to $0.08 per GB for good, reliable drives, and according to Tom's Hardware's chart, it seems like prices are stabilizing for the moment:

 

I've been noticing the opposite recently prices are steadily increasing for Micron NAND, if anything, Samsung NAND is the only one stabilizing. Roundabout leading up to and after xmas last year, Micron massively ramped up their IMFT 25nm production to counteract Toshiba's stupid reduction of 30%. This meant, toggle NAND SSDs skyrocketed in price while all models based on Micron NAND got dirt cheap. This totally screwed Toshiba over since Micron didn't relent on the production until very recently. However, Toshiba is slowing down to make room for its 19nm chips, while Micron is also slowing down to phase out 25nm. This I think is contributing to the recent high prices. I got a Plextor M5s (uses 25nm Micron IMFT) xmas time last year for $175 for 256gb, I got another one two weeks ago for $200 and now its fluctuating between $220-$230.

 

See: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...03497-cheap-crucial-m500-960gb-announced.html

 

Memory/RAM prices are going up... nand prices fluctuate wildly depending on demand/greed of the manufacturers.

Simply choose the best SSD at the capacity you need and follow it on your favorite sites until the sale price is in line with the cash in your pocket.

Don't forget to price match (to save shipping, at least), or even price beat (by up to 25% or more) if you're in Canada. High prices at your favorite store doesn't mean you have to pay a lot...

See:
Memory Express - Price Protection

 

I'm looking at an Intel 520 Series Solid-State Drive 120 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch - SSDSC2CW120A3K5 (Reseller Kit), for just under $150 USD, free Two Day Air (thank you Amazon Prime!). It will be my Boot/Programs drive, and use my existing 500GB HDD for files.

 

Hmm, very interesting...maybe down the road when I'm ready to replace my 500GB files and folders HDD they'll be cheap and have all the bugs worked out ;-).

 

By the time the bugs are worked out of SSD's... we'll be using the next gen storage subsystem's at that point...

 

LOL! True enough ;-)

 

FWIW I found the recent posting of several others (all very knowledgeable) on the subject of up/down pricing of memory and NAND very interesting.

And yes memory/NAND pricing does go up/down, like a yoyo, depending on demand/supply.

To my view, I expect SSD prices to DROP significantly in the next 3 months, given arrival of Crucial/Micron 20nm NAND SSD devices and their stated aggressive lower pricing. Others will have to follow that!

 

In the short term, supply/demand will prevail.

3+ months out (maybe sooner?), I expect SSD prices to DROP significantly, given arrival of Crucial's M500 SSDs!

IMHO 20nm NAND is the next major step in dropping SSD prices.

 

I just checked Newegg's price on the Intel drive I'm looking at...it's down $20 since last week...Amazon's down $10 (they were already $10 cheaper than Newegg). Now almost down to $1/ GB

 

IMO you have to get over this money burning a hole in your pocket thing.

The M500 devices are likely going to show up in the USA in the next month.

When that happens, we'll see the next serious reduction of SSD pricing.

Which is why you started this thread, nes pas?

 

Absolutely ;-) As impatient as I feel right now, I can wait. I was just showing how the trend lower you predicted is starting already.

 

What are the requirements for SSD ? is there any special drivers or incompatible BIOS ? I might get one of those and use my current HDD as a Data storage

 

I think most computers built in the last two or three years should be

 

Only major requirement is that you have a SATA port inside your laptop, which includes pretty much every laptop made in the past six years or so. Most SSDs now are SATAIII, but SATA is backwards-compatible so it'll scale back to SATAII if your laptop doesn't support SATAIII.

 

Thanks for making this clearer. I think I will pass on SSD for my laptop, I plan on building a custom tower for myself this year and I will save all the upgrades for that