SSD Prices Could Drop Over 50 Percent In 2019 - Report
According to a DigiTimes report citing "industry sources" this week, NAND flash prices are expected to continue to drop in 2019 after already seeing a 50 percent drop this year. Earlier reports said that SSD prices could fall to as low as $0.08 per GB in 2019.
SSD Prices In Freefall
The DigiTimes report noted that the continued drop in prices seems to be primarily due to SSD manufacturers expanding their production capacity to increase profitability, as well as the adoption of 96-layer NAND technology. The technology allows for denser SSDs and, therefore, cheaper storage.
Simon Chen, chairman of Adata Technology, a well-known DRAM and SSD maker from Taiwan, said that flash makers have not only continued to increase production capacities for their flash storage facilities, but that NAND flash products may actually see larger drops in prices next year compared to this year.
Mass-Produced 96-Layer SSDs Are Coming
Many of the flash storage vendors are expected to begin mass production of 96-layer 3D NAND SSDs in the first half of 2019. Most of them are building capacities for manufacturing 50,000-100,000 96-layer 3D NAND chips per month, while China's Yangtze Memory Technology is expected to reach a production capacity of 150,000 chips per month.
The same price drops don’t seem to be expected in the DRAM market, primarily because there seems to be less competition there. The top three DRAM chipmakers (Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron) don’t intend to expand the capacity too much in 2019, even though there will be increased demand for DRAM for gaming systems, data centers and the automotive industry, according to Chen.
In September, it was reported that Samsung will limit DRAM production in 2019, maintaining the current high prices for its DRAM.
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Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers software news and the issues surrounding privacy and security.
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Tanyac Excellent news. SSDs are currently selling at 15 times the cost of a HDD. So that would bring them down to 8 times the cost of HDD. A step in the right direction. (Example; Seagate ST10000VN004 sells here for $431, $43/TB. a 1TB 970 Pro sells for $649 per TB)...Reply -
USAFRet Reply21432512 said:Excellent news. SSDs are currently selling at 15 times the cost of a HDD. So that would bring them down to 8 times the cost of HDD. A step in the right direction. (Example; Seagate ST10000VN004 sells here for $431, $43/TB. a 1TB 970 Pro sells for $649 per TB)...
You're comparing apples and oranges.
970 Pro?
I don't know about your market, but here in the US, not nearly that bad.
All 1TB:
HDD
WD Blue, $46
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Cache-Desktop-Drive-WD10EZEX/dp/B0088PUEPK
SATA III SDD
Samsung 860 EVO, $163
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078DPCY3T
NVMe
Samsung 970 EVO, $278
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-1TB-MZ-V7E1T0BW/dp/B07BN217QG
Samsung 970 Pro, $395
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BYHGNB5 -
jimmysmitty Reply21432550 said:21432512 said:Excellent news. SSDs are currently selling at 15 times the cost of a HDD. So that would bring them down to 8 times the cost of HDD. A step in the right direction. (Example; Seagate ST10000VN004 sells here for $431, $43/TB. a 1TB 970 Pro sells for $649 per TB)...
You're comparing apples and oranges.
970 Pro?
I don't know about your market, but here in the US, not nearly that bad.
All 1TB:
HDD
WD Blue, $46
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Cache-Desktop-Drive-WD10EZEX/dp/B0088PUEPK
SATA III SDD
Samsung 860 EVO, $163
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078DPCY3T
NVMe
Samsung 970 EVO, $278
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-1TB-MZ-V7E1T0BW/dp/B07BN217QG
Samsung 970 Pro, $395
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BYHGNB5
Even better is the 500GB WD Blue SSD is about $80 bucks now. Cut that in half and it will be the same price as a 500GB WD Blue hard drive.
I am fine with price drops. The closer to $200 a 4TB SATA III SSD gets to the happier I am going to be. -
USAFRet Reply21432635 said:
Even better is the 500GB WD Blue SSD is about $80 bucks now. Cut that in half and it will be the same price as a 500GB WD Blue hard drive.
I am fine with price drops. The closer to $200 a 4TB SATA III SSD gets to the happier I am going to be.
Yep.
The 860 EVO, MX500, WD Blue are all within $5-$7.
And all within a percent of two of identical performance. -
dlauber3 You can still upgrade from Windows 7-8.1 to Windows 10 for free according to the legendary Ed Bott. See https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgradeReply -
USAFRet Reply21432734 said:You can still upgrade from Windows 7-8.1 to Windows 10 for free according to the legendary Ed Bott. See https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-you-can-still-get-a-free-windows-10-upgrade
Yes, that is a well known concept.
Nothing to do with this discussion, but yes, it still works. No magic needed. -
benn Good news. I’m waiting for the day when we can replace our terabytes of mass storage with SSDs (for a decent price). Bring on cheap 6tb ssd drives.Reply
Write endurance won’t be a factor for most people. A mass storage drive would only get a very minor percentage of rewrites VS an O/S or program drive. -
AnimeMania One major difference between SSDs and Hard Drives is SSDs can lose their data if they are not connected to a power supply every so often.Reply -
shrapnel_indie ReplyIn September, it was reported that Samsung will limit DRAM production in 2019, maintaining the current high prices for its DRAM.
It bears saying again... this is akin to, if not outright, a method of price fixing.
It will be nice to see SSD storage prices fall even further... as long as write endurance doesn't fall as much.