Intel SSD Prices Drop by Up to $100

Intel SSDs now a little cheaper, but still not cheap.

As we heard last week, Intel has cut prices for its solid state drives.

The consumer enthusiast line of X25-M can now be had for a little cheaper, though by no means cheap. The X25-M 80 GB model falls $50 now and can be found on Newegg for $325. The 100 GB model gets a $100 cut and is now $630 from the e-tailer.

According to ComputerWorld, Intel said the price of the enterprise SLC NAND SSD X25-E drive will remain the same. The X25-E 32 GB sells for $410 and the 64 GB model sells for $790.

With no mechanical moving parts, no spinning platters, and just really fast flash memory, a SSD is likely the best upgrade that you can perform on your rig due to the storage subsystem being the slowest part of the typical computer system.

It might be expensive, especially in relative terms compared to the capacity you could get with just $100, but with a fast SSD you’re getting more than just storage.

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8

slickuser , April 30, 2009 4:08 AM

this news is atleast 2 days old...
-3

hellwig , April 30, 2009 4:13 AM

"With no mechanical moving parts, no spinning platters, and just really fast flash memory, a SSD is likely the best upgrade that you can perform on your rig due to the storage subsystem being the slowest part of the typical computer system."

Uh, what? Unless your only task on the computer is loading software (and not actually using said software), an SSD does not buy you very much. If you game, that extra $200-$400 would be better spent on a GPU or CPU. If you create content (videos, whatever) you need more storage than an SSD even has. If you don't do anything very intensive, just save yourself the money.
1

kyeana , April 30, 2009 4:20 AM

hellwig"With no mechanical moving parts, no spinning platters, and just really fast flash memory, a SSD is likely the best upgrade that you can perform on your rig due to the storage subsystem being the slowest part of the typical computer system."Uh, what? Unless your only task on the computer is loading software (and not actually using said software), an SSD does not buy you very much. If you game, that extra $200-$400 would be better spent on a GPU or CPU. If you create content (videos, whatever) you need more storage than an SSD even has. If you don't do anything very intensive, just save yourself the money.

QFT!

Although i admit i wouldn't mind having a few of these...
2

crom , April 30, 2009 4:26 AM

OCZ makes a 120 gig SSD, 2.5" interface for $279. Now I just don't understand why they're so expensive to make in general. You'd think manufacturing something with moving parts would cost significantly more.
2

anonymous@guest , April 30, 2009 4:32 AM

Hellwig,

Most people (read: not corporations) are using SSD Hard Drives as their OS HDD, or a scratch drive for photo and video editing. This speeds up things tremendously. Whether or not it's worth the time to you is one thing...to some it is. Personally I'm fine with my 5400rpm WD Blue drive that has a really dense platter and gives me the performance of a 7200rpm drive. If/when SSD drops in price, I'll think about it.
0

The Schnoz , April 30, 2009 4:55 AM

Great, now they drop the price. I just bought two of these! J/k, they're still to fucking expensive. This is the one price drop where you won't see that comment.
2

grieve , April 30, 2009 5:01 AM

Didn't i read this exact article 2 or 3 weeks ago?

Or was that "price's are GOING to drop?"

Anyway... to much $$ still
1

eddieroolz , April 30, 2009 5:06 AM

Ugh, I seriously would like a SSD to replace my hard drive in my laptop, but the damn price...still at $630. And that's not even CAD!
0

B-Unit , April 30, 2009 5:15 AM

cromOCZ makes a 120 gig SSD, 2.5" interface for $279. Now I just don't understand why they're so expensive to make in general. You'd think manufacturing something with moving parts would cost significantly more.

The problem is the fast SLC flash is expensive to produce, therefore to get any significant size, they have to be expensive.
0

Blessedman , April 30, 2009 5:54 AM

Crom you are right, the fixed price of a HDD is a good portion of the drive. As flash scales, the only fixed price in an SSD is the interface which is vastly cheaper. It will still be another 5 years before Flash scales to the kind of prices to compete with HDD.
0

fonzy , April 30, 2009 7:17 AM

I would be happy with a SLC 128GB SSD at $140 for my OS,some games and the other normal software.

Prices are still just to high. Hopefully next year it will be getting close.
0

anonymous@guest , April 30, 2009 8:50 AM

Why couldn't intel cut prices of every drive by $100?

The only drive I could consider, but probably won't anymore soon, is their lowest priced drive. But looking at the performance, I can get faster drives from the competition. Their slowest MLC drive is noticeably slower than their more expensive MLC drives.

By the time I'm going to buy a SSD drive, it won't be intel anymore.

And,crom, OCZ doesn't use the controller Intel uses. Though they are starting to become good. Especially those SATA3 SSD's.
Heck, I'm still running Sata1 on my notebook, which is less than 2 years old! time sure went by fast!
0

TidalWaveOne , April 30, 2009 9:46 AM

Intel makes some of the best SSDs, but I would not pay the price premium they're asking (even after the price drop) when there are better values out there.
0

apache_lives , April 30, 2009 11:33 AM

TidalWaveOneIntel makes some of the best SSDs, but I would not pay the price premium they're asking (even after the price drop) when there are better values out there.

Atleast when were buying Intel they know what there doing and actually product a quality product, not rebadge a bunch of other components to make there product - i trust intel over any other SSD company any day.
0

my_name_is_earl , April 30, 2009 12:57 PM

Mehh, not cheap enough for mainstream. At that price I can still get 2x 2tb and still have money left for ice-cream and a ring pop.
0

apache_lives , April 30, 2009 5:26 PM

my_name_is_earlMehh, not cheap enough for mainstream. At that price I can still get 2x 2tb and still have money left for ice-cream and a ring pop.

Its not for the average joe just yet hence the premium

your taking quality vs quantity - two different things
0

hillarymakesmecry , April 30, 2009 6:59 PM

I want 128gb for $50. Until then I'll stick with my raptor.
0

sublifer , April 30, 2009 8:59 PM

Well, that puts the 80GB x-25M at about the same price as a 300GB 15k SAS drive. I'd like to see a good RAID comparison between the two... I'm gonna have to see if I can find one. If not, it might be a good idea for Tom's to cover.
0

sublifer , April 30, 2009 9:01 PM

Found one, its with the x-25E though. Still it'll be interesting to see.

http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3532&p=1
1

dark_lord69 , April 30, 2009 9:32 PM

cromOCZ makes a 120 gig SSD, 2.5" interface for $279. Now I just don't understand why they're so expensive to make in general. You'd think manufacturing something with moving parts would cost significantly more.

They are not more expensive to make.
Companies make huge profits off early adopters that pay a premium price to have it early. They know that so they charge an arm and a leg. Also if they ease into market it is safer. Start with high profits and low volume. Then ease on into higher volume and lower prices after the manufaturing and best prectices have been perfected.

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