SSDs will be more expensive the coming months

As the title say... SSDs will be more expensive the coming months
@Phoenix @hmscott
"Furthermore, the consensus of leading suppliers will continue to be the maximizing of their profitability" The greed

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/ssds-will-be-more-expensive-the-coming-months.html

 

Papusan, 'the greed'. That's all I can say... sigh.

There is no shortage. Just greed.

 

@Papusan - We shall see. I don't know what to make of the actual report (as in... is it trustworthy):

"MLC NAND Flash are estimated to rise by 6~10%"
"...average prices of mainstream client-grade SSDs carrying TLC NAND Flash are expected rise by 6~9% sequentially in the fourth-quarter PC-OEM market"
" most NAND Flash suppliers (with the exception of Samsung) will still have complications in their transition to the 3D-NAND technology"

http://www.dramexchange.com/WeeklyResearch/Post/2/4532.html

 

Use Google translate. Even Samsung Galaxy Note 7 is one of the culprits for price increases, LOL

http://www.sweclockers.com/nyhet/23036-ssd-priser-vantas-fortsatta-stiga-pa-grund-av-minnesbrist

"Även Samsungs debacle kring Note 7 tillskrives en del av ansvaret, då det innebar att minst hundra miljoner gigabyte NAND-minne försvann från marknaden. Samsung är dock de enda som haft en relativt smärtfri övergång till 3D V-NAND, något som många andra tillverkare haft problem med, vilket gjort att de fått förlita sig ännu mer på traditionellt 2D NAND"

Translated. "Even Samsung's debacle surrounding the Note 7 to the written part of the responsibility, then it meant that at least a hundred million gigabytes of NAND memory disappeared from the market. Samsung, however, is the only one that had a relatively painless transition to 3D V-NAND, something that many other manufacturers had problems, which meant that they had to rely even more on traditional 2D NAND"

Info from Tomshardware
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ssd-hdd-shortage-nand-market,33112.html

 

The SSD prices are not justifiable as is... this price hike is adding insult to injury.
SSD's can overshadow HDD's easily enough, the manufacturers simply love to put exuberant prices on their products to maximize profits - while also using sub-par materials, and designing these things with planned obsolescence in mind.

The tech industry would easily benefit from harvesting the raw materials from old technology, converting them into base elements and reconstituting them into new technologies (as opposed to continuing ridiculous mining practices, expending/wasting energy on transportation and then processing).

I mean, one could even more or less understand their desire to sell people new stuff that's marginally better with only slightly different features, but in that case, they should offer the option to harvest the older iteration of technology for its raw materials and use those in constructing the new one at no cost, or fraction of the actual cost.

Because, let's be realistic. Technical efficiency allows you to do more with less, meaning you can expend LESS resources in construction of new technology which would be more durable, longer lasting, far superior in every respect... so, if you harvest a laptop from say 4 to 8 years ago for its raw materials, you could realistically build two new ones from it.

But heck, OEM's want to cut corners as much as possible... they hadn't even changed the fundamentals of a laptop cooling system for decades now.

 

The more I think about it, the more I hope they pull something. If Optane (3DXPoint) is priced appropriately, they'll lose a ton of market share.

 

Who is the "market researcher" and who is paying him/her? This would not be the first time a "market researcher" was paid by a corporate entity to push the market in a certain direction.

 

Here's an article from May http://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-sandisk-wd-storage-nand,31795.html
and another more recent article http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ssd-hdd-shortage-nand-market,33112.html

My read on this is that the low prices of early this year have led to an increase in demand, but fabs trying to switch to 3D NAND (and most of them having difficulty) have not increased product of 2D NAND. Add to this that Phison appears to be stockpiling NAND, banking on higher prices in the near future (and their 3Q results bear that out http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2016/11/11/2003658992 )Thus we have increased demand without an increase in supply which will drive up prices until suppliers get 3D NAND production up, or give up on it altogether and revert back to 2D NAND production. This stuff happens and it won't last.

 

Recycling is a laborious and cost prohibitive process, although people who actually dispose of them properly, they do end up getting recycled to some extent. See this article: http://www.popsci.com/where-do-recycled-electronics-go

You could no way build two new modern components using old components from 4 to 8 years ago. You have tenfold more transistors, all on the same package space. While technology is shrunk and improves, we are using more materials because they are smaller, they are more densely packed. Your PCB may be a bit smaller due to this, but the bulk of the materials that make things work (like metals) remain the same or increase.

 

There are companies that do recycle computer components, mostly for the gold and silver. They will even pay you for components, by the pound. Precious-metal-rich components command the highest price. Motherboards, CPUs, memory will get you around $3-$8/pound (up to $30/pound for certain CPUs with more gold plating). But other components, like power supplies, cables, hard drives, the value of the copper barely covers the cost to recycle. But it isn't like these places are on every street corner. You will very likely have to ship the material to them, so unless you have a pile of 486's and old Pentiums lying around, you probably aren't going to see more than a dollar or two. However, you could check with your local computer repair shop to see if they recycle. Some of them take older components (if they aren't too old) to repair old computers. And they can probably stockpile enough really old components to make it cost effective for them to send it off to a recycler.

I have no dealings with this company, but they are one example of a computer recycler. http://therefiningcompany.com/Electronics-Scrap.aspx At the very least, it beats PAYING the local wast disposal place $25/pound to take computers and computer components (which will mostly end up in a junk yard or land-fill).

There are also organizations that take older computers and components to build computers for families that couldn't otherwise afford one, or to be used by other NPOs. Surfing the web, answering email, creating a presentation, updating a spreadsheet, etc can all be done with systems 10 years old and older. And MS even has special OS licenses for NPOs.

 

SSD's are so good with such a low failure rate atm that even black friday seemed to have performed badly..

My oldest SSD the Intel 330 from 2012, has been running almost non-stop, and is still performing like a champ.


Interesting to see how enough technology push for a product, can create a issue which starts to rival the creators at their own game.

 

Intel Launches Optane DC P4800X-SSD With 3D XPoint Aka 1500 USD this 4 USD per GB

SSD Doctor @tilleroftheearth A note would be nice. Is this an expensive flop? Or will be? And when will Optane become more common on the most of machines? I think LenovBook's will have Intel's <super fast> Optane storage.

"Intel claims that endurance should be better then traditional NAND, up-to 20 times better. But that's a claim that is easy to make of course. Despit the numbers, Intel only gives three years warranty and an endurance of 30 dwpd (drive writes per day)"


3D XPoint Debuts, Intel Announces Optane SSD DC P4800X And Pricing - Tom's Hardware.com


More of the same http://www.anandtech.com/show/11208/intel-introduces-optane-ssd-dc-p4800x-with-3d-xpoint-memory

"Future 3D XPoint-based Optane products on Intel's roadmap include Optane Memory cache drives for the client/consumer segment, due in Q2 of this year. They will also be followed by larger Optane SSDs for the client market. DIMMs featuring 3D XPoint memory are planned for 2018."

 

Prices of SSDs and RAM will crash in 2019, Gartner predicts - PCworld.com

"It’s possible that prices of PC and mobile devices will head back down, which has been the general trend for more than a decade. But some companies may opt for profits rather than pass the savings on to buyers, much like Apple + Dell has done historically."

 

Is Now a Good Time to Buy an SSD?

 

If you are buying a new computer (without an SSD...) or whether you are building a new one yourself: 'now' is always the best time to buy as much computer hardware/HP (horsepower) as you can.

The storage subsystem shouldn't be any different when making this decision in the above scenario...