When is that BIG price drop coming??

[borisvodofsky]

talkin bout SSDs

When is that double your capacity for the dollar price drop coming,, that this anand article was talking about...?/??

Hm???

is it about that time,,, i remember somewhere I read christmas or end of year (2011)

:awe:

 

[FishAk]

It's been here for a long time.

Three years ago, you could buy an SSD that couldn't compete with a modern HDD for about $7.50 to $12.50/Gb.

Today's SSDs perform many times better, for about $2.00/Gb.

The price to performance difference, considering only a 4 fold increase in performance is about 30 percent each year. So in October 2007, a Sandforce drive would cost about $30 to $50/Gb. (A ScanDisk 5000 32Gb drive was $400, or $12.5/Gb, 3 years ago. How much is it worth now?)

30 percent each year over the course of 3 years doesn't sound like much, untill you realize that at 33.4 percent, instead of paying, you get paid take an SSD. I suppose you would have to pay an electronic recycling center to take the ScanDisk 5000 off your hands.

 

[Ben90]

Yea, I thought SSD prices were starting to stagnate before I started looking at the old SSD articles from AT. Then I remembered 32Gb SSD drives selling for $1600 only a few years ago.

The answer to your question is most likely 25nm http://www.anandtech.com/show/2928

 

[Emulex]

the big problem is enterprise wants your 25nm - all of it - now at any price.

so that will drive down availability for the quality schtuff and well above MSRP for a while.

holidays -> G3 consumer; feb-> G3 enterprise(g2 really but let's keep it simple)

so i'd grab all you can - contact your sales rep's and get on the wait list.

 

[MagickMan]

It's like I said previously, when 25nm finally trickles down to mainstream you'll probably see a 10-15% drop in pricing /GB. Demand will be nuts, so don't expect a massive price cut.

 

[Zap]

Demand will be nuts, so don't expect a massive price cut.

Exactly. I think demand is already high, and once price drops a bit for the upcoming 25nm stuff... :whiste:

Every time one of the popular SSDs goes on a hot deal, the shop tends to sell out. With sales that hot I don't think they'll feel the need to drop prices even more.

 

[Raduque]

That price drop would've come A LOT faster if stupid people with too much money would stop paying the ludicrously high prices of current SSDs. I personally refuse to buy an SSD until it's price-competitive with traditional spindle drives. IOW, not $500 for a 256gb drive.

 

[borisvodofsky]

Exactly. I think demand is already high, and once price drops a bit for the upcoming 25nm stuff... :whiste:

Every time one of the popular SSDs goes on a hot deal, the shop tends to sell out. With sales that hot I don't think they'll feel the need to drop prices even more.

Fuck me...... I want the 25nm already... fuck... is this shit really that expensive to make... wtf...





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[jaydee]

It's been happening slowly. Just last year, the smoking hot shellshocker was the Intel 80GB for like $225 after some rebate. Last week, you could have gotten the OCZ Agility 2 (superior in just about every way) 90GB for $143.

If anything I'm looking for regular prices of mid-high end $1.5/GB in the next few months, with sales pushing into the $1.0-1.2/GB range.

 

[TemjinGold]

That price drop would've come A LOT faster if stupid people with too much money would stop paying the ludicrously high prices of current SSDs. I personally refuse to buy an SSD until it's price-competitive with traditional spindle drives. IOW, not $500 for a 256gb drive.

Actually, if all those "stupid people" refused to pay the high prices, the tech would simply just die and not get evolved because the companies wouldn't be getting any money to continue fueling their R&D. When you can't feasibly continue dumping stuff at massive losses, you stop trying or close up shop. Over time, the expensive stuff generates the money you need to keep researching cheaper and better processes that in turn makes it viable to sell a lot cheaper. You should be grateful to those "stupid people."

 

[Blain]

Fuck me...... I want the 25nm already... fuck... is this shit really that expensive to make... wtf...

Get a job and you can buy better toys.

 

[capeconsultant]

Actually, if all those "stupid people" refused to pay the high prices, the tech would simply just die and not get evolved because the companies wouldn't be getting any money to continue fueling their R&D. When you can't feasibly continue dumping stuff at massive losses, you stop trying or close up shop. Over time, the expensive stuff generates the money you need to keep researching cheaper and better processes that in turn makes it viable to sell a lot cheaper. You should be grateful to those "stupid people."

I second this. This is the way it works with ALL tech. What if stoopid people never bought a 5 MEGABYTE hard drive for 1200 dollars?

 

[capeconsultant]

Fuck me...... I want the 25nm already... fuck... is this shit really that expensive to make... wtf...

You can swear. WOW.

 

[taltamir]

When is that double your capacity for the dollar price drop coming,, that this anand article was talking about...?/??

you seem to misunderstand... its double capacity per dollar to MANUFACTURE...
And its coming in a few months.
The problem is that everyone and their dog wants it... the 50 to 32nm transition also cut down production costs to less than half than before... but sale price? well, it was MSRPed at 2/3 the previous price... I snagged one within 10 minutes (it went live in 6m, I ordered at 6:10), within half an hour it was OOS... price went above what it was originally for the G1s... and it took a while to go "back down" to that 2/3 of price.

expect the same with 32 to 25 transition...

but there IS a reason to wait... improvements to tech. New controllers of the G3 era will be more than 2x as fast as the older ones, the sandforce one claims ridiculous 500MB/s speeds, and the intel G3 also looks to deliver.
Even if it is at the same price as the G2 due to supply issues, it is faster. The G2 added trim vs the G1, so that was a reason to wait there (although, you could have just gotten a vertex that promised it to existing customers, in which case no reason to wait)...

There IS however the possibility that demand will be less then expected and that we really will see actual tangible price drops happen quicker.

Oh, and you could probably snag a reduced price 32nm SSD once the 25nm ones arrive... but with the 25nm ones being twice as fast would you want to?

Originally Posted by Raduque
That price drop would've come A LOT faster if stupid people with too much money would stop paying the ludicrously high prices of current SSDs. I personally refuse to buy an SSD until it's price-competitive with traditional spindle drives. IOW, not $500 for a 256gb drive.

Limited supply, massive demand... it doesn't make someone stupid to need something more than you do.
As for actual price parity with spindle drives... now that is just being silly, manufacturing costs are not even that low... forget profit, they will have to be sold at a HUGE LOSS to spindle drive prices today...

 

[tweakboy]

Not for a while my friend. Twice the capacity only means a way more expensive drive.

Im going to guess and what Ive researched. The new Intel ones third gen up to 600GB

600GB will cost a arm and a leg.. It will cost 400 dollars probably. Then they will have a 300 dollar version 320GB ,, and a 150 to 200 dollar version with capacity of 200GB.

The day SSD prices and capacities are what mechanical hard drives are will not come for a while , probably 2012 ,, no time soon and not next year. The only price drop will be the old generation SSD's The new ones with more capacity just mean more money ya see...

 

[FishAk]

600GB will cost a arm and a leg.. It will cost 400 dollars probably.

Tweaker! What are you talking about?

Right now, a 160Gb Intel costs almost $400.

$400 for 600Gb is about 1/4 of the current price.

We can only hope it sill be that cheap!

 

[taltamir]

Tweaker! What are you talking about?

Right now, a 160Gb Intel costs almost $400.

$400 for 600Gb is about 1/4 of the current price.

We can only hope it sill be that cheap!

exactly... furthermore, SSDs already bypass spindle drive DENSITY (there is a reason they use 2.5 and 1.8 inch form factors)... it is the COST that is the limiting factors right now. And no way in hell will you find a 600GB for 400$... We can expect the 160GB to go down from 400$ to between 200 and 300$

that being said, 80GB and 128GB is not a bad size for an OS, programs, and some games that need the boost.

 

[Athadeus]

I'm just still not convinced of the performance improvement, so I'm hoping that reviews will be able to say that these next gen drives significantly increase Windows boot time and game load times. I expect there will be other improvements by the end of Q1 next year that haven't been announced yet that will help convince me.

 

[aceO07]

I'm hoping for the Intel G3 300GB to be decent price. The 160GB is too small for me, especially if I'm supposed to keep some space free.

 

[taltamir]

I'm just still not convinced of the performance improvement, so I'm hoping that reviews will be able to say that these next gen drives significantly increase Windows boot time and game load times. I expect there will be other improvements by the end of Q1 next year that haven't been announced yet that will help convince me.

windows load time I find negligible anyways... for boot time its mostly bios loading... and besides, it doesn't take that long.

But game load times, thats a real kicker there... Also game INSTALL time (can easily be an hour on some games in some systems).
Install times are drastically reduced... load times depend on the game. For the game Distant Stars an identical max sized galaxy save game (100+MB save) took me 1 min 11 seconds from spindle drive, 1 min 8 seconds from SSD... showing effectively no improvement.
on the other hand, SOME games have shown drastic improvement in load times.
So it very much depends on what game it is.

 

[tweakboy]

Oh doh, your right FishAK, my bad,, even worse.

I truley think its something for the enthusiast and someone you can afford to spend money on a big upgrade like SSD or even a Video Card per say. Maybe someone who does SLI should save the video card monoey and get a SSD instead.. I bet he notices difference, but notices no difference in SLI ,, its already soo freakin fast.. lol peace out!

 

[tweakboy]

I hear you taltamer,, but at the end of your using a video rendering station or a DAW

the SSD will not do it, there will be no space on it,, so it would have to be done on a mechanical drive,, or buy another SSD for your data

Soo with the sizes right now you have to buy 2 SSD's cuz theres no way a video editior can work with 160GB drive that already most of it is used by OS and apps already... what about the space for the project.....

I think its ridicilous their just ripping us off. They can mass produce,, its just they want to bank on it... I think prices will remain what FishAk said until 2012 thats for sure...Imagine the day they cost as much as todays hard drives with same space like 1TB for you movie porn mp3 leeches. I dont need that much personally..

man SSD can kiss my touche if its gonna be 600 bones for a 320GB drive, hmmmm that is more then a CPU or a Video Card.. wtf something wrong here.... The 2nd gen ones wont drop in price much I tell ya that too..At the end space matters just as much as speed.

 

[taltamir]

I think its ridicilous their just ripping us off. They can mass produce,, its just they want to bank on it... I think prices will remain what FishAk said until 2012 thats for sure...Imagine the day they cost as much as todays hard drives with same space like 1TB for you movie porn mp3 leeches. I dont need that much personally..

This is honestly not the case. A fab costs billions of dollars, and there are only so many of them in the world... while the actual "cost of production" is low, but the cost of setting up a fab (which only has a few years worth of production before its completely obsolete) has to be divided amongst all the units it will produce. A fab that cost 6 billion dollars, will operate for 3 years, and produce X waffers a day, has to divide the 6 billion it cost between all the die it produces just to be able to cover equipment cost, then there is the cost of employees, design teams, day to day manufacturing, repairs, etc etc.

You can literally count how many such fabs exist (in the highest miniaturization level) in the entire world on one hand. And you have a LOT of demand for it, there are 6 billion people in the world and growing... so those few fabs have to supply enough for all of them (not all own SSDs, but a sizeable portion do, and those that don't... well, businesses running servers want those too... banks, email servers, etc etc... everyone wants them, cost is the only reason to use a spindle drive over an SSD).
The various companies are building new fabs at breakneck speeds, remember this is a VERY new technology (or rather, old tech that just got good enough to have mass market demand)... but we are not at saturation point yet.

Now... COULD they sell it for less and still cover their costs? yes, but then they will have less money to build extra fabs, AND you will NOT be able to find any in stock, at all. Besides which, why SHOULD they? they are still selling every single chip that comes out of those fabs, that means demand far outstrips production... they are not intentionally hampering production to keep it this way, but they are not giving away their chips for less then their actual market worth.

Now, intel DOES have a history of impeding tech to maximize returns... but remember that this market is not one with a monopoly. There are multiple companies out there that manufacture MLC chips and they are in brutal competition, if they were to try and impede production intentionally, it just means that their competitors will overtake them... what you describe only happens in a monopoly, or when there is collusion (illegal conspiracy to fix prices). Those things DO happen btw... the RAM cartel was when the only 5 companies in the world actually making ram chips were busted, in court, for conspiring to fix prices at very high price... then 10 years later busted for conspiring to sell BELOW COST (they were actually selling at a loss) in order to kill off a newcomer that threatened them (RAMBUS)...
mmm, I think I just shot my own argument in the foot with those two examples... since AFAIK we are talking about the exact same companies... err... I THINK they are not doing it again?

 

[SickBeast]

I've seen 128gb SSDs go for $128 on sale. IMO that's enough space for Windows plus a bunch of applications and games. You could just use a regular hard drive for all your media.

Prices seem to be coming down lately. I'd say you can expect twice as much capacity for the same $ every year.

 

[capeconsultant]

128GB works great for me. I can offload crap to a spinner. I wish my own services were totally selling out at say $500 per. If that were the case, I would NEVER EVER EVER sell for $250. Because I WANT the money! So, if I still had plenty on the shelf, THEN I would consider lowering the price.

Over the past 2 years or maybe 3 I have seen the price of SSD go down, quality, speed and size go UP! What else does that? Cars? Food? Gas? Electricty? Cable? I THINK NOT!