OCZ Preps Shipments of 1 TB Octane SSD

[Guest]

OCZ announced that it will begin selling its 1 TB Octane 2.5-inch SSD in Japan in mid-May.

OCZ Preps Shipments of 1 TB Octane SSD : Read more

 

[drwho1]

Let me know when they hit $100

 

[Marfig]

Ugh! Feels like 1989 all over again. Great drives at incredibly expensive prices.

Not sure when we can expect $ per GB to fall down on SSDs to more manageable levels. But the promise of cheaper SSDs is starting to become old. Interesting also that they had to curb their enthusiasm for a fast drive to keep the price from skyrocketing. At 460/330 this isn't exactly within the typical 5xx MB/s of current offers.

At its price range this single drive is more expensive than 5 240GB drives, which raises considerably the $/GB. Naturally it's a whole lot more convenient. But the question exists: Exactly what manufacturing process justifies these premium prices?

 

[futuramafan]

thats more than my entire computer, it would be cool to have such a massive ssd, but...thats expensive

 

[mindless728]

Marfig, have you thought that because this drive has to use more dense memory ships that is what makes it more expensive, the 240GB drives probably use chips that are 1/2 or 1/4 in density

 

[Marfig]

[citation][nom]mindless728[/nom]Marfig, have you thought that because this drive has to use more dense memory ships that is what makes it more expensive, the 240GB drives probably use chips that are 1/2 or 1/4 in density[/citation]

My point was that we need to hit some manufacturing milestones yet before SSD technology becomes anything more than a pipe dream of mainstream computing. I should have elaborated.

Consider this, despite all the advantages we recognize in SSDs, their $/GB has been an inconvenience not just to our wallets but to the use we can make of the added performance. And we then learn that increasing capacity raises that dollar per GB ratio even further to nearly unmanageable levels. So, the closer an SSD gets to become a broad scope drive, the more we have to pay for it. Up to a point where a 1TB SSD costs as much as 10 240GB SSD.

Despite the coolness of the technology (which I'm not going to dispute), there's a real manufacturing process problem here that we need to overcome.

 

[g00fysmiley]

I like seeing ssd's geting bigger and bigger... but man its odd tha tthe price per gig goes up as you increse in size, my agility 120 gig ssd was $100 (caught it on sale) so less than a dollar a gig, vs this at $3.24 a gig i know more dense memory is more expensive and harder to make but i think there is more premium pricing and higher profit margins on these larger drives. if ssd really want to replace hdd they should be trying to make them bigger and for as cheap as possible so people get used to the speed of ssd's to see faster market gain

 

[jay2tall]

I be willing to spend $500 on something like this. Let me know when the cost comes down.

To be honest for consumer purposes, I don't see 1 TB being needed at this moment. Most people stick with a boot SSD or one for OS and APPS. I wouldn't put my data on an SSD just yet.

 

[mindless728]

My point was that we need to hit some manufacturing milestones yet before SSD technology becomes anything more than a pipe dream of mainstream computing. I should have elaborated.

Consider this, despite all the advantages we recognize in SSDs, their $/GB has been an inconvenience not just to our wallets but to the use we can make of the added performance. And we then learn that increasing capacity raises that dollar per GB ratio even further to nearly unmanageable levels. So, the closer an SSD gets to become a broad scope drive, the more we have to pay for it. Up to a point where a 1TB SSD costs as much as 10 240GB SSD.

Despite the coolness of the technology (which I'm not going to dispute), there's a real manufacturing process problem here that we need to overcome.

It has always been the case the that $/GB on the largest drives are higher than the lower drives and that is usually from a few things
1) The cost to have densities that high are much more expensive that lower densities
2) There is more R&D that goes into having devices this high end
3) Usually more parts in the larger capacity drives (platters for HDD, chips for SSD) that they warranty

Look at the cost of 4TB drives and even 3TB drives, it shows there as well in the HDD sector

Also, to have 10 240GB SSD's, you would need an add in controller card, granted the cost for that will not be that much in comparison to the drive cost, but it is another part and expansion slot that is used, then there is the amount of power and space that having 10 times more drives (for ssd's power is pretty much negligible, but space is not)

btw if you think this is expensive, check out the enterprise grade drives compared to enterprise grade HDD's, there is a huge price difference at the same capacity there as well

I for one would be all for lower $/GB SSD's, but there are a myriad of reasons to why this is not so

 

[Chaz21]

Like everything else PC related, these big SSD's were developed for business and industrial applications. They aren't yet priced for the consumer but rather for the only market that can afford them. They will eventually make their way to "our" price level just like the HDD's did. It's a natural progression. Patience is all that's needed.

 

[robisinho]

this suggested price is clearly a typo -- 28000 yen is almost certainly the correct price. Why would you wait to pay 3.4k $US for 1TB of SSD nand operating at speeds that were not even competitive last year, when you can buy 2×512GB of crucial's m4 at 2×~$425 dollars right now?

 

[ricdiculus]

Could someone please tell me why they cant use a 3.5" formfactor? Wouldnt that allow room for much higher capacity drives with out having to constantly work on cramming more info into smaller chips? I duno, just my 2 cents worth.

 

[master9716]

SSDs are Enthusiast Products - they will still sell a lot , If the price of SSDs was low then everyone would have 500MBps and there would be no competition and no advancements in technology for SSDs , things like this always help the industry

 

[TidalWaveOne]

Wait a week and it will be half price.

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]Marfig[/nom]Ugh! ...Exactly what manufacturing process justifies these premium prices?[/citation]

The fact that you have a huge amount of fixed expenses and -in the beginning- only a small quantity to sell. The old story...once you go into mass production/volume sales the price comes down.

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]ricdiculus[/nom]Could someone please tell me why they cant use a 3.5" formfactor? Wouldnt that allow room for much higher capacity drives with out having to constantly work on cramming more info into smaller chips? I duno, just my 2 cents worth.[/citation]

Smaller means more potential devices that can use them (Laptops, tablets, etc.).

Incidentally, has anyone noted how 'portable phones' went from 'brick' size down to small flip phones, and not cell (smart) phone sizes are slowly creeping up in size back to smart bricks (Samsung's new Galaxy for example) ?

 

[freggo]

"Tablets", NOT tables of course

Also this brings up the idea of a smart table... we call it the iTable naturally


Toms, We need an EDITING option !!

 

[Marfig]

[citation][nom]ricdiculus[/nom]Could someone please tell me why they cant use a 3.5" formfactor? Wouldnt that allow room for much higher capacity drives with out having to constantly work on cramming more info into smaller chips? I duno, just my 2 cents worth.[/citation]

Unfortunately doesn't seem so. It isn't the first time OCZ launches 1TB drives. 3 years ago it launched the Colossus series. The 3.5'' 1 TB drives cost in excess of three thousand dollars.

There's more than meets the eye concerning the SSD market prices. The math doesn't add up and more and more I'm convinced we are experiencing a distorted reality in which demand is helping keep the prices artificially up.

Please note that 2.5'' and 3.5'' SSD aren't necessarily enthusiast or enterprise-grade products, contrary to what some want to believe. The only thing that keeps them that way is exactly their price range.

 

[drwho1]

[citation][nom]Marfig[/nom] there's a real manufacturing process problem here that we need to overcome.[/citation]

is called Greed,this "process" happens behind doors at the very high level of the manufacturing "process".

 

[mindless728]

"Tablets", NOT tables of course

Also this brings up the idea of a smart table... we call it the iTable naturally


Toms, We need an EDITING option !!

there is an editing option, you need to click on "Read the comments on the forums" where it acts just like the forums on toms hwardware

 

[Guest]

Last month, we bought new computers for our cluster. They ended up being 32 core (dual interlagos) with 64Gb of ram. Each system cost about 3k. This 1Tb drive costs as much as one of those systems. No offense, but you can keep your freakin SSD drives. I'll get 3Tb old school drive and spend the difference on a beefy processor and dual high end GPUs in my system.

 

[Tanquen]

Let me know when SSDs or quad channel DDR3-2600 RAM have any effect on any of the games or apps I run. Big waste of time and money I say.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]Marfig[/nom]Ugh! Feels like 1989 all over again. Great drives at incredibly expensive prices.Not sure when we can expect $ per GB to fall down on SSDs to more manageable levels. But the promise of cheaper SSDs is starting to become old. Interesting also that they had to curb their enthusiasm for a fast drive to keep the price from skyrocketing. At 460/330 this isn't exactly within the typical 5xx MB/s of current offers.At its price range this single drive is more expensive than 5 240GB drives, which raises considerably the $/GB. Naturally it's a whole lot more convenient. But the question exists: Exactly what manufacturing process justifies these premium prices?[/citation]

an ssd has a fixed cost of about 50grand for a waffer.
by my math that comes to about 21tb a waffer.
unless we can make the wafferes cheaper, price wont go down for anything less than a nm shrink.

that said i dont know the exact cost of a ssd and based my prices off of a new ssd that wasn't priced to move, if i could get the size of a ssd chip, the actual waffer part, i could get a better number.

they dont make the drives faster to keep the price up... its they cant drive the price down so they at least make them faster

[citation][nom]Marfig[/nom]Unfortunately doesn't seem so. It isn't the first time OCZ launches 1TB drives. 3 years ago it launched the Colossus series. The 3.5'' 1 TB drives cost in excess of three thousand dollars.There's more than meets the eye concerning the SSD market prices. The math doesn't add up and more and more I'm convinced we are experiencing a distorted reality in which demand is helping keep the prices artificially up.Please note that 2.5'' and 3.5'' SSD aren't necessarily enthusiast or enterprise-grade products, contrary to what some want to believe. The only thing that keeps them that way is exactly their price range.[/citation]

this, this is why i want to know the size of the chips, i would be able to figure out if we are being royally screwed or not.

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]mindless728[/nom]there is an editing option, you need to click on "Read the comments on the forums" where it acts just like the forums on toms hwardware[/citation]

Hey, thanks for the tip !!!
Is this a new feature or have I been overlooking this forever ?

 

[zakaron]

I want to see this in Tom's next System Build article. Then I want to win it when they give'em away ;-)