SSD Prices Falling Faster Than HDD Prices

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[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Surely more than 0.8% though...With a good EFI instead of a traditional BIOS, no swap file and lots of RAM, then add an SSD boot drive with approx 500mb read and you can pretty much have a desktop PC with "instant-on", long term bulk storage will always be the reserve of traditional hard drives but for the speed benefits to the whole system you MUST get an SSD[/citation]

I don't see many people who do understand the difference in speed to pay that much extra money for it. I don't see many people who are so impatient for their machine to boot that they will pay so much extra. They will still want a secondary HDD for actual storage. At that point, they will see that they are going to pay an extra $200+ to decrease loading times. My machine boots fast enough for me to be happy, without buying an SSD. My games load fast enough, my applications load fast enough. Would I like to have an SSD? Absolutely. Can I justify the expense? No.

I would say that SSD's are enthusiast and enterprise customers only at this point, with a few of the masses here and there with extra money to blow getting one in their new Dell or eMachine for a huge price increase.
 
I'd love to see $1.00/GB -- from what I see it's $1.25~$1.75+/GB. I expect the HDD prices to drop like a rock very soon back to $0.05~$0.09/GB since the flooding is over in Thailand and the factories are back to full production. $0.16/GB for a HDD is nuts today!

You'd think factories won't be in a Flood zone or Earthquake zone --- ??!!
 
[citation][nom]mrmaia[/nom]If HDD prices dropped as fast as SSD's, they would be practically free today. HDDs are close to reaching their price asymptotes, and won't fade away from the market in the next years - especially with ever-increasing media file sizes and internet bandwidth.[/citation]

Wow, I had to read it twice just to make sure, you really did use the word asymptote. *Slow clap*
 
[citation][nom]gavenr[/nom]SSD is like HD is to cable. Once you go HD or SSD you never go back!![/citation]

I subscribed to HD cable then switched back. Don't spend so much time watching tv.
 
This is a prime example of how you can lie with statistics.
The graph starts already in 1998 when the harddrives were extremely expensive per dollar.
They should have started it around a yearand a halft after the SSD;s came into the market, when the price for them did fall from the silly 40$/Gb to around 4.50$.

The result of this is that the graph looks like there is a small difference between SSD;s and harddrives and that they will cost the same very soon, when in reallity the SSD;s costs about 20 times more than the harddrives per Gb (when comparing the cheapest alternatives for both per GB)and when the supply of the good 'ol mechanical drives is restored the gap will widen more!

But I guess the 20 times difference wouldn't make a great article of SSD;s closing in on mechanical discs.
 
[citation][nom]rawful[/nom]I don't see many people who do understand the difference in speed to pay that much extra money for it. I don't see many people who are so impatient for their machine to boot that they will pay so much extra. They will still want a secondary HDD for actual storage. At that point, they will see that they are going to pay an extra $200+ to decrease loading times. My machine boots fast enough for me to be happy, without buying an SSD. My games load fast enough, my applications load fast enough. Would I like to have an SSD? Absolutely. Can I justify the expense? No.I would say that SSD's are enthusiast and enterprise customers only at this point, with a few of the masses here and there with extra money to blow getting one in their new Dell or eMachine for a huge price increase.[/citation]
The fact that SSD sales since their first release have rocketed, despite competition from traditional HDD in terms of value for storage GB per $, means that the overall speed benefits are approciated by more people than you think
...
It's not just boot times, everything about the system is quicker from editing HD video to file transfers, if people are prepared to pay $500 for a CPU that is only 10% faster than one that costs $200 then people are a lot more happy to invest in this method, the sweet spot for a lot of commenters is $1 per GB and thousands are using the HDD flood catastrophe as a good excuse for a shiny new SSD for Xmas
 
Yeah, like many have noted already, an SSD would be amazing if you can justify/afford the cost yourself. But the uptick in SSD sales a lot of people seemed to have expected because of the HDD shortage thing hasn't happened as much. How long did it take for the mass public to understand the difference between MB and GB, or that a larger drive would mean better performance? SSDs effectively undo a lot of that hard-learned lesson. It'll take a while for the public to jump onboard. That said, SSD manufacturers have an incentive to push prices as low as they realistically believe they can beause that's the number one way they can increase public appetite for them.
 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]The fact that SSD sales since their first release have rocketed, despite competition from traditional HDD in terms of value for storage GB per $, means that the overall speed benefits are approciated by more people than you think...It's not just boot times, everything about the system is quicker from editing HD video to file transfers, if people are prepared to pay $500 for a CPU that is only 10% faster than one that costs $200 then people are a lot more happy to invest in this method, the sweet spot for a lot of commenters is $1 per GB and thousands are using the HDD flood catastrophe as a good excuse for a shiny new SSD for Xmas[/citation]

Yes, their sales have skyrocketed. To whom, though? Enthusiasts and enterprise customers. People who NEED the speed for productivity or performance. The average person is not getting a SSD for christmas. The average person can't put one in their machine and install an OS on it. They don't know the differences between SSD's and HDD's. They just know one is fast but $200 for 120GB, and one is slower but is $60 for 1000GB.

How many people do enough video editing to justify the cost? How many people even transfer files from computer to computer at their house? How many people are willing to pay $500 for a CPU? Such a small small percentage of people, and you are talking about them like they are the majority of consumers. I think the amount of people that "approciate" the speed difference or need the extra speed either already have SSDs or are waiting for them to get a bit cheaper. The average joe doesn't even know what an SSD is or why he would want to pay extra.

How many people build their own computer compared to how many buy a Dell or an eMachine? The technologically proficient are by far in the minority. The average person thinks a "CPU" is the entire computer, not just the processor.
 
Their graph appears suspect to me. They do show a very slight decline per year in SSD prices, but they show HDD pricing to be pretty flat over the past 5 years and I don't think that is the case.

I bought a new computer for my office almost exactly 3 years ago, and the 1TB drive in it cost $195 at the time. Those drives were down to less than half of that "before the flood", and 3TB drives were available. Just based on the 1TB drives that would have to be about 30% decline per year. So I would say that HDD drives went down in price more than what I have witnessed with SSD's.

I have been interested in buying SSD's for some of my own computers so I have been watching the prices very carefully. In the past 12 months I have witnessed only very slight price declines in the good drives, maybe 10% or less, and I have watched prices almost every day. I have seen prices decline recently in some of the junk OCZ drives that have 40+% failure rates but they have had to do that in order to get people to buy them, and those prices aren't fair to include in this comparison.
 
[citation][nom]rawful[/nom]Yes, their sales have skyrocketed. To whom, though? Enthusiasts and enterprise customers. People who NEED the speed for productivity or performance. The average person is not getting a SSD for christmas. The average person can't put one in their machine and install an OS on it. They don't know the differences between SSD's and HDD's. They just know one is fast but $200 for 120GB, and one is slower but is $60 for 1000GB. How many people do enough video editing to justify the cost? How many people even transfer files from computer to computer at their house? How many people are willing to pay $500 for a CPU? Such a small small percentage of people, and you are talking about them like they are the majority of consumers. I think the amount of people that "approciate" the speed difference or need the extra speed either already have SSDs or are waiting for them to get a bit cheaper. The average joe doesn't even know what an SSD is or why he would want to pay extra.How many people build their own computer compared to how many buy a Dell or an eMachine? The technologically proficient are by far in the minority. The average person thinks a "CPU" is the entire computer, not just the processor.[/citation]
Your entire arguement relies on pulling down the whole market to a lower, dumber level, stop being such a drag
...
Surely the whole industry wouldn't even exist without people being early adopters (graphics cards, bigger HDDs, faster CPUs, more RAM, better monitors) and the fact that $40 per GB to $1 per GB in just 5 years is proof that this is the way things are going, especially as it the same time period HDD cost per GB has stagnated
...
So by all means thumb down but it's people like me and other "enthusiasts" that will let "ordinary" people have an SSD that is 10 times bigger, faster and cheaper in 10 years time, what are you doing to help?
 
[citation][nom]in_the_loop[/nom]This is a prime example of how you can lie with statistics.The graph starts already in 1998 when the harddrives were extremely expensive per dollar.They should have started it around a yearand a halft after the SSD;s came into the market, when the price for them did fall from the silly 40$/Gb to around 4.50$.The result of this is that the graph looks like there is a small difference between SSD;s and harddrives and that they will cost the same very soon, when in reallity the SSD;s costs about 20 times more than the harddrives per Gb (when comparing the cheapest alternatives for both per GB)and when the supply of the good 'ol mechanical drives is restored the gap will widen more!But I guess the 20 times difference wouldn't make a great article of SSD;s closing in on mechanical discs.[/citation]
How about they expand the dates in the opposite direction from the time IBM invented HDDs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive
How about at time of invention it was $15,000 per megabyte, (or $15.36 million per GB)
How long did it take to be acceptable as storage medium to the public?
Certainly not 5 years
 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Your entire arguement relies on pulling down the whole market to a lower, dumber level, stop being such a drag...Surely the whole industry wouldn't even exist without people being early adopters (graphics cards, bigger HDDs, faster CPUs, more RAM, better monitors) and the fact that $40 per GB to $1 per GB in just 5 years is proof that this is the way things are going, especially as it the same time period HDD cost per GB has stagnated...So by all means thumb down but it's people like me and other "enthusiasts" that will let "ordinary" people have an SSD that is 10 times bigger, faster and cheaper in 10 years time, what are you doing to help?[/citation]

Honestly, I am not even sure what your argument is anymore. You seem to be agreeing with me? Yes, the enthusiast and the enterprise markets picking up SSDs will keep it advancing and help it become more and more established, and as a result, the price will go down. Your argument now seems to be that the enthusiast market and the enterprise market are adopting them. Just a newsflash, but that was my original point. The average CONSUMER (***not enthusiast***) can NOT justify the cost YET. You are a minority in the market.

SSDs have not reached a consumer level price point or market saturation yet. Of course they are going to, but they haven't yet.

Your point about the pricing is based on skewing the data, just as someone else pointed out. That graph is illogical. It doesn't take into account a vast amount of factors. SSD's started in a time where conventional hard drives had already advanced to the terabyte capacity and had been around for 20+ years. Even so, from 1998 to 2002 (based on that graph), conventional hard drive price per GB has dropped by a larger amount. From $56.3 to ~$5.... So I disagree with your point.
 
[citation][nom]rawful[/nom]Honestly, I am not even sure what your argument is anymore. You seem to be agreeing with me? Yes, the enthusiast and the enterprise markets picking up SSDs will keep it advancing and help it become more and more established, and as a result, the price will go down. Your argument now seems to be that the enthusiast market and the enterprise market are adopting them. Just a newsflash, but that was my original point. The average CONSUMER (***not enthusiast***) can NOT justify the cost YET. You are a minority in the market.SSDs have not reached a consumer level price point or market saturation yet. Of course they are going to, but they haven't yet. Your point about the pricing is based on skewing the data, just as someone else pointed out. That graph is illogical. It doesn't take into account a vast amount of factors. SSD's started in a time where conventional hard drives had already advanced to the terabyte capacity and had been around for 20+ years. Even so, from 1998 to 2002 (based on that graph), conventional hard drive price per GB has dropped by a larger amount. From $56.3 to ~$5.... So I disagree with your point.[/citation]
Someone else did better research ^^^^^, IBM developed HDDs in the 50's and at $15 million per GB it took a hell of a long time to get to the sweet spot we have now

Really we shouldn't compare HDDs to SSDs based solely on price per Gb because to do so all other factors would have to be equal and they are not, speed, noise and energy efficiency have to be taken into account

And I don't have an arguement, I am making positive points and you are thumbing down and being negative, just agree to disagree and come back in 5 years when virtually every new PC sold will have an SSD as the main boot drive by default.
 
An exponential graph would be easier to read and much more useful as we could actually compare the slopes of the price decreases in a more linear fashion.
 
[citation][nom]memadmax[/nom]Any articles about the "heat assisted recording"? I'm very interested in this and as yet can't find anything.[/citation]
"Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a technology that magnetically records data on high-stability media using laser thermal assistance to first heat the material. HAMR takes advantage of high-stability magnetic compounds such as iron platinum alloy. These materials can store single bits in a much smaller area without being limited by the same superparamagnetic effect that limits the current technology used in hard disk storage. The only catch being that they must be heated to apply the changes in magnetic orientation. HAMR was developed by Fujitsu in 2006 so that it could achieve one terabit per square inch densities."

There's more just do a Google.
 
[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Someone else did better research ^^^^^, IBM developed HDDs in the 50's and at $15 million per GB it took a hell of a long time to get to the sweet spot we have nowReally we shouldn't compare HDDs to SSDs based solely on price per Gb because to do so all other factors would have to be equal and they are not, speed, noise and energy efficiency have to be taken into accountAnd I don't have an arguement, I am making positive points and you are thumbing down and being negative, just agree to disagree and come back in 5 years when virtually every new PC sold will have an SSD as the main boot drive by default.[/citation]

Actually, my original point was to someone saying that the masses don't use Linux. My response was that the masses also don't use or need SSD's. You responded to my response to his response, and went down an entirely different tangent. Don't presume I am being negative. I am being both realistic and honest. I would love a pair of SSD drives to go in my machine, because I both recognize and desire the speed. I can not currently justify the cost. In another year, I will be able to. That isn't being negative, is it? It's called being too poor to afford the latest and greatest.
 
[citation][nom]digiex[/nom]SSD Prices Falling Faster Than HDD PricesYou might be wrong, HDD prices aren't falling, it is rising.[/citation]
Very good point, 2 inches of water and production lost for a few days and suddenly a huge bandwagon starts up causing the whole worlds HDD prices to double or treble, making a mountain out of a molehill, even HDD companies that aren't located anywhere near where the floods were have upped their price.
It is scandelous, the non-affected companes should have used it as an excuse to increase their own production and corner the market from their less-fortunate competitors.
 
Surely a 60Gb SSD just to act as a boot drive and the majority of your programs, with games being on a secondary HDD, is not exclusive to the rich and famous.

If you can't afford the $80 it takes to have a 500mb read 60Gb SSD then you need to reconsider the value of owning a PC at all, especially when "average" people splurge hundreds and hundreds buying things like iPhones.
 
Still they aren't low enough to become a mainstream storage media like HDDs are. They are limited to being a system drive which has to be supplemented with a magnetic drive unless one has got thousands to spend.
 
[citation][nom]irh_1974[/nom]Surely a 60Gb SSD just to act as a boot drive and the majority of your programs, with games being on a secondary HDD, is not exclusive to the rich and famous.If you can't afford the $80 it takes to have a 500mb read 60Gb SSD then you need to reconsider the value of owning a PC at all, especially when "average" people splurge hundreds and hundreds buying things like iPhones.[/citation]

Reconsider the value of buying a PC? You can buy a complete system at freaking walmart for $350 that comes with a monitor, printer, operating system, 500GB hard drive, 4GB of memory, current generation dual-core CPU. Tell the average person that they can make it load windows and some of their applications much faster for an extra $80 and they will say no. You would want at least 120GB for it to be worthwhile, imo, and now you are talking $160. That is almost half the cost of the entire computer.
 
[citation][nom]amdfangirl[/nom]Now all we need is better Btfs support on Linux for the mass proliferation of SSDs.[/citation]
I'm sorry this got voted down into invisibility, because this makes perfect sense. Enterprises use Linux, and enterprises have the big wallets. When they can start spending on SSDs, the increase in demand should lead to an increase in supply to meet it, and hopefully economies of scale to help bring down prices.
 
[citation][nom]jtt283[/nom]I'm sorry this got voted down into invisibility, because this makes perfect sense. Enterprises use Linux, and enterprises have the big wallets. When they can start spending on SSDs, the increase in demand should lead to an increase in supply to meet it, and hopefully economies of scale to help bring down prices.[/citation]

This was pretty much my statement, and I was argued against. Everyone seemed to love the statement that the masses don't use linux (on their desktops and laptops anyways) though.
 
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