sunny27 :
why are ssds so expensive? aren't they flash based memory storage devices? if flash memory sells so dirt cheap wht makes ssds so expensive?
I am asking myself same question. I see SD cards that are around $4/GB at new egg (not high performance ones though). So that should make you think that with all the construction, controllers, and other dev stuff it shouldnt exceed $10/GB but it does. Actually its around $20/GB for any acceptable SSDs at the moment. I think the reason is VERY low volume, OEMs are buying almost all of the production on High prices yet, young technology, and probably not the latest chips in the SSDs.
My predictions for near future:
More and more companies are jumping on the SSD wagon and that creates more Volumes and more competitiveness. I expect SSDs to go down to $10/GB at the end of the year and $5/GB at the end of 2009 (for SSDs that have around 100GB/s read/write rates). I think the $5/GB will be the breaking point and make them reasonable to buy, because you will be able to buy 32GB for $160 ( a decend HDD). I think the pair SSD + HDD for storage will be the next common thing for all PCs. probably 95% of the users will find 32GB are enough to store your OS + Apps + few Games you play, and store everything else on HDD (Movies, pics, videos, apps, backups, etc)
Also I expect a 100GB/s SSD to be around 2-3 times faster for general use (OS , apps, games etc) than a normal 100GB/s HDD. Thats the near future by my opinion.
In long term I cant really predict but I think SSDs will be around for at least 5 years, and after I buy myself a 750GB HDD in few weeks, my next upgrade will be SSD
(probably 2009 summer - winter)
Regards