Is the timing right to get an SSD drive?

[OneOfTheseDays]

I've been tempted to pick one up to put my main OS + applications on but am worried that the technology is evolving so quickly what I buy now will pale in comparison to what comes out in mere months.

 

[Hacp]

Its the worst timing. Wait 6 months for the new 32nm flash chips to come out. Prices will surely go down.

 

[Slugbait]

Well, Toshiba is about to ship 32nm NAND. OCZ is about to abandon SATA in favor of PCIe to eliminate bottle-necking.

Of course, how you decide ultimately hinges on one question: are you considering one of the many slow, inexpensive SSD drives, one of the few faster, somewhat inexpensive SSD drives, or one of the fast, expensive SSD drives?

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Well, Toshiba is about to ship 32nm NAND. OCZ is about to abandon SATA in favor of PCIe to eliminate bottle-necking.

Of course, how you decide ultimately hinges on one question: are you considering one of the many slow, inexpensive SSD drives, one of the few faster, somewhat inexpensive SSD drives, or one of the fast, expensive SSD drives?

Well, samsung also said they'll ship their 32nm chips in Q3. However, you need to give them a few months leeway for two reasons. One is to let the markets push down the prices. The second is to ensure you're not a 32nm betatester 😛

 

[corkyg]

I would wait a little bit. (Little bit= one month) There are some major movements going on. Western Digital just acquired SiliconSystems, and will use SS to metamorphose into the WDC SSD center. Look for Seagate to make a similar move. That will have an immediate impact on the SSD market and make the prices competitively realistic.

Otherwise - help us out of the recession and spend your (or your parents) money! 🙂 $300 for a 128 GB Corsair SSD is still a bit pricey - especially these days.

 

[Looney]

I plan on getting the Corsair SSD drives. I don't believe in waiting for hardware, because you'll always be waiting... there's ALWAYS something better over the horizon. If it was 1 month i would wait, but 6 months?

And you can always upgrade later as well. I'll probably toss the Corsair SSD into my Macbook or something if i ever decide to upgrade to another SSD later on.

 

[Looney]

Oh, i also don't know anything about PCIe drives coming out or anything, but OCZ problems is not a bottleneck issue, it's a design issue. All these memory manufacturers think all they need to do is slap some flash chips together and you get an awesome SSD, but that's obviously not the case. Intel and Corsair did it right, and their limitations are the same as OCZ... they just have better designs/components.

 

[Viper GTS]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Well, Toshiba is about to ship 32nm NAND. OCZ is about to abandon SATA in favor of PCIe to eliminate bottle-necking.

Of course, how you decide ultimately hinges on one question: are you considering one of the many slow, inexpensive SSD drives, one of the few faster, somewhat inexpensive SSD drives, or one of the fast, expensive SSD drives?

I think you're reading a little too much into their title. Yes they are releasing a PCIe offering, but they are not abandoning the SATA interface. That would be idiotic since essentially every PC and laptop sold in the last 5 years uses SATA. Yes, SSD's are approaching the limits of current gen SATA. That doesn't mean SATA is now useless, not to mention SATA 3.0 is almost here. Abandoning the interface would be suicide.

That said...

Wait a little bit longer. Next gen flash is coming, and soon. Capacities from many manufacturers are about to double, better controllers are being developed/used, etc. Exciting things are coming.

Viper GTS

 

[RaiderJ]

For me it's a price issue. Give me a $100 drive that doesn't suck so I can switch out my laptop HDD. Anything more expensive than that isn't worth it (to me).

Edit: And at least 80GB

 

[JackMDS]

Any time is a good time to get hardware that after installation provides a Real useful functional gain.

Upgrading for Social Gains (which seems to amount in many cases here) is always a Bad timing.

I.e. Let assume that you upgraded, what are you expecting would work better that would really improve useful production.