Solid State Drives Break the 50 Cents Per GiB Barrier, OCZ ARC 100 Launched

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Solid State Drives Break the 50 Cents Per GiB Barrier, OCZ ARC 100 Launched

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday August 13, 2014 @02:50AM from the ssds-for-everyone dept.

MojoKid (1002251) writes Though solid state drives have a long way to go before they break price parity with hard drives (and may never make it, at least with the current technology), the gap continues to close. More recently, SSD manufacturers have been approaching 50 cents per GiB of storage. OCZ Storage Solutions, with the help of their parent company Toshiba's 19nm MLC NAND, just launched their ARC 100 family of drives that are priced at exactly .5 per GiB at launch and it's possible street prices will drift lower down the road. The ARC 100 features the very same OCZ Barefoot 3 M10 controller as the higher-end OCZ Vertex 460, but these new drives feature more affordable Toshiba A19nm (Advanced 19 nanometer) NAND flash memory. The ARC 100 also ships without any sort of accessory bundle, to keep costs down. Performance-wise, OCZ's new ARC 100 240GB solid state drive didn't lead the pack in any particular category, but the drive did offer consistently competitive performance throughout testing. Large sequential transfers, small file transfers at high queue depths, and low access times were the ARC 100's strong suits, as well as its low cost. These new drives are rated at 20GB/day write endurance and carry a 3-year warranty.

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Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 02:53 · Score: 4, Funny

An arbitrary number is not a "barrier". A barrier is what your father should have worn.
1. Re:Not a barrier by ClioCJS · 2014-08-13 02:58 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  It's a mental barrier. People have price points, and they are often round numbers like $1/M, $1/G (depending on when you grew up), etc.
  
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2. Re:Not a barrier by Karganeth · 2014-08-13 02:59 · Score: -1
  
  No, that's not how reality works. Sorry.
3. Re:Not a barrier by bondsbw · 2014-08-13 03:02 · Score: 2
  
  Whose reality? This is reality for many people.
  Besides, if you take the "per GiB" out and just talk about a 500 GiB drive for $250, that is exactly how it works.
  It's called money. Learn it.
  
  --
  All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
4. Re:Not a barrier by ClioCJS · 2014-08-13 03:06 · Score: -1, Troll
  
  Except it is, and you don't dictate how reality works. All I have to do is have made a purchasing decision by that criteria at any point in my own life (which you can't disprove) in order to have a counter example that disproves your idiotic statement.
  
  --
  -Clio
  Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
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5. Re:Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:14 · Score: -1
  
  "which you can't disprove"
  That's not how rational arguments work.
6. Re:Not a barrier by plopez · 2014-08-13 03:18 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  That depends. If you have to cram a long term storage device into a small package then SSDs may win that battle regardless of the price difference. If you need virtualy 'instant on' storage or quick booting capabilities then SSDs win. If you need a very light weight solution the SSDs win. Price is but one factor.
  
  --
  putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
7. Re:Not a barrier by harrkev · 2014-08-13 03:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Hmmm.. I remember the Atari 1020ST was sold as the first computer ever to be under $1 per Kilobyte. It is true that $0.50 / gigabyte is nothing magical from a tech standpoint, but this is not about tech, it is about psychology. Human beings are not entirely logical, and emotions play a large part in decisions.
  
  --
  "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
8. Re:Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:41 · Score: 0
  
  All I have to do is have made a purchasing decision by that criteria at any point in my own life (which you can't disprove) in order to have a counter example
  But you won't. People can't disprove it, but nevertheless you probably didn't ever do that. That's the trick: how do you persuade someone to be the one who steps forth and proclaims to the world, "I'm an idiot!" just to prove your point?
  If you look at how real people really behave, they look at total prices that have sufficient capacity to fit their needs. And almost nobody's needs are ever a convenient round number, though sometimes (though even this is somewhat rare) their pre-tax pre-shipping cost constraints are nice round numbers. So you rarely find someone who says "I would pay $115 (but not $116) after shipping for a 500GB (but not 500 GiB) SSD." Nobody wants to say that just to prove a point, since it comes with the cost as being outed as a fuckwit. No one wants to be outed like that. It's not that they mind being fuckwits or even some people knowing how dumb they are, but they don't like having such a clear explicit indicator. That is reality.
  And the thing is, if you only rarely run into people who share arbitrary points like that, they aren't a "barrier." Sure, everyone has their own point, so there are millions of them, but it's not like there are really millions of "barriers. A lot of people have to have a point in common, for it to be a big deal. The SSD market doesn't have that, unless maybe, we talk about the point where it costs the same as disks. That will be a big important barrier.
9. Re:Not a barrier by pla · 2014-08-13 04:28 · Score: 1
  
  No, that's not how reality works. Sorry.
  
  Perhaps you could explain that to the stock market(s)?
  
  Look at the price of Apple for the year - Notice that sudden drastic jump in late April? They did a 7-to-1 stock split, which has no effect whatsoever on the underlying value of the asset. And yet, people rushed to get in on "cheaper" Apple stock, driving the per-share price up by 12% in three days.
  
  Whether it makes sense or not, in any activity dependent on human behavior, you need to factor in how humans respond to stupid things like big round numbers (DJIA at 17000), to fake "discounts" (like Apple stock at $75), even to days of the week (look at volume for Fridays vs any other day).
10. Re:Not a barrier by Opportunist · 2014-08-13 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  What for? That junk is worth less and less every day.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
11. Re:Not a barrier by WuphonsReach · 2014-08-13 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  If you have to cram a long term storage device into a small package then SSDs may win that battle
  
  Depends on how you define "long term". A powered off SSD only retains data for as little as 6 months up to a few years (and as cell sizes get smaller, that will get worse).
  
  Traditional magnetic media is still going to be better for 5-15 year lifespans on a shelf.
  
  --
  Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
12. Re:Not a barrier by JasonGoatcher · 2014-08-13 05:08 · Score: 0
  
  Symbolic barriers are just as real as physical barriers.
  Not to be offensive, but do you have autism or OCD? Because this conversation has a rather pedantic topic.
13. Re:Not a barrier by JasonGoatcher · 2014-08-13 05:11 · Score: 0
  
  What if we call it a barrier beyond which people read the story and say to themselves,"That's so frickin cool?"
14. Re:Not a barrier by jon3k · 2014-08-13 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  Yes it does.
15. Re: Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 05:40 · Score: 0
  
  OCD isn't really relevant here. OCPD, maybe.
16. Re:Not a barrier by master_kaos · 2014-08-13 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  Actually it is, and for exactly this. I made a decision that I wasn't going to buy an SSD until I could get a good one that was > 200GB at $0.5/gig just like this example. This was the price I was comfortable paying. I ended up getting a Samsung 840 EVO 250GB for exactly $125 (canadian) at staples.
17. Re:Not a barrier by njnnja · 2014-08-13 05:47 · Score: 1
  
  So you rarely find someone who says "I would pay $115 (but not $116) after shipping for a 500GB (but not 500 GiB) SSD."
  Although the particular person at $115 is pretty rare, they are very important, since they are the marginal buyer at $115. The "rare" marginal buyer at 115, and the "rare" buyer at 116, and at 117, and at 118, etc.create the demand curve.
  
  But there are likely to be discontinuities in the curve, especially at round numbers, so the number of marginal buyers of a 500gb drive from $250 down to $249 is probably a decent sized chunk, whereas the number of buyers from say $257 to $256 is probably not so significant.
18. Re:Not a barrier by Hamsterdan · 2014-08-13 06:07 · Score: 2
  
  Yes it does.
  My first SSD cost 240$ for 120GB, that's 2$/GB, many people found that way too expensive. Now that it hovers around 0.50$/GB, it means that for 120$ most people will be able to justify putting one in their system. 240GB is sufficient for almost all usage scenarios (especially laptops). Gives plenty of fast storage and a nice kick in performance without being obscenely expensive. Sure it will take a long time before it gets to price parity with spinning drives (if ever), but the way to build is SSD for OS and apps, HDD for media.
  
  --
  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
19. Re:Not a barrier by Hamsterdan · 2014-08-13 06:10 · Score: 2
  
  Are you sure it will spin up after 5 years? sure the data will be there, but if the bearings have seized up it won't do any good.
  Besides, SSDs are not intended for backup, so it's kinda a moot point.
  
  --
  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
20. Re:Not a barrier by UnknownSoldier · 2014-08-13 07:27 · Score: 2
  
  Indeed. $100 seems to be a common barrier.
  With the 256 GB Samsung 840 EVO less then $100 ($0.78125/GB) and the 256 GB for only $130 ($0.5078125/GB) people really don't have an excuse anymore.
  * http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-...
  * http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-...
21. Re:Not a barrier by ClioCJS · 2014-08-13 07:32 · Score: 1
  
  Me? i was the one responding to the guy who said they weren't real barriers. So we're agreeing. So I don't understand why your comment sounds like disagreeing.
  
  --
  -Clio
  Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
  Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
22. Re: Not a barrier by shitzu · 2014-08-13 08:18 · Score: 2
  
  Also - how is that news? Crucial MX100 256GB that became available in the beginning of summer costs 110$ at Amazon. That is less than 0.5$/GB.
23. Re:Not a barrier by msim · 2014-08-13 10:02 · Score: 1
  
  The fourminute mile was a barrier that athletes had as a psychological barrier for years.
  Then oger Bannister broke the record after training with the mentality that he could go faster, not that he had reached his peak and couldn't go any better. Record after record after record tumbled as people realised that it wasn't a limit and trained with the mindset that they COULD get better and run faster than a mile in four minutes
  
  --
  
  Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know when your gonna get food poisoning.
24. Re:Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 11:32 · Score: 0
  
  Don't forget the power differentials. Low power devices sip on ssd.
25. Re:Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 12:24 · Score: 0
  
  It's not a barrier, because that implies resistance. It was inevitable and expected that prices would fall to that level.
  It was a threshold or a milestone.
26. Re:Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 12:38 · Score: 0
  
  gtfo failbook faggot
27. Re:Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 15:29 · Score: 0
  
  Might have a bit of stiction, but nothing a little hand cranking won't cure long enough to pull the data off.
28. Re:Not a barrier by Saffaya · 2014-08-13 17:40 · Score: 2
  
  Just a nitpick : the model was designated ATARI 1040ST.
  (The half-meg model was the 520ST.)
  "The 1040ST was the first personal computer shipped with a base RAM configuration of 1 MB. When the list price was reduced to $999 in the U.S. it appeared on the cover of BYTE in March 1986 as the first computer to break the $1000/megabyte price barrier;"
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
29. Re:Not a barrier by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-14 05:22 · Score: 0
  
  Are you sure it will spin up after 5 years? sure the data will be there, but if the bearings have seized up it won't do any good.
  I've powered up machines that are 25 years old and the bearings are just fine. The data reads off the drives without any sector errors. A 22nm MLC Flash device is guaranteed to be blank after 25 years in storage. Not maybe, guaranteed.
  Hard drives are more robust than tapes, contrary to popular opinion. Tapes are made of porous plastic and are susceptible to mold, humidity, heat and atmospheric caustics. HDD platters are made of metal and enclosed in not airtight, but very well filtered enclosures. It is possible to repair HDD bearings, though it requires delicate handling in a clean room or glove box. It is also possible, though laborious and expensive, to recover data from HDDs using an SEM or Xray microscope.
  For the ultimate in data storage I would like to use FIB machining to engrave my data into gold plates and iridium coat them, but given cost constraints, I am most content to store my data on HDDs with copy-forward archiving.
Cheaper drives by Vigile · 2014-08-13 02:53 · Score: 5, Informative

Good drive, for sure, but keep in mind that the Crucial MX100 broke that barrier at its launch in June (and at $0.44/GB).
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/S...
1. Re:Cheaper drives by AmiMoJo · 2014-08-13 03:02 · Score: 1
  
  What barrier is this? Is there some reason why getting below $0.50/GB is difficult, or is it merely the result of gradually falling prices?
  
  --
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2. Re:Cheaper drives by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:06 · Score: 0
  
  It's a mental barrier. It's where I decided to buy one. Psychology is real. If it weren't, gas prices wouldn't be to the tenth of a cent in the US.
3. Re:Cheaper drives by schlachter · 2014-08-13 03:07 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Maybe Apple will soon be breaking the $2.00/GB barrier.
  
  --
  My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
4. Re:Cheaper drives by Vigile · 2014-08-13 03:14 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  No, no particular technical difficulty, just another step in gradually falling prices. We have seen drives hit $0.39/GB as well with standard Amazon.com pricing. The Crucial M550 (a bit faster) is at $407 for 1TB model today, for example: http://amzn.to/1kBpIs1
5. Re:Cheaper drives by gman003 · 2014-08-13 03:15 · Score: 1
  
  It's falling prices, but it's a measure of how fast they're falling. Not too long ago, $1/GB was the "barrier" everyone wanted to cross. Before that it was probably $5/GB or something. Next we'll be looking to break $0.25/GB, then probably price parity with hard drives.
  It's like the 1GHz barrier on CPUs, back in the day. It wasn't so much a barrier as it was a milestone, a mark of how far we've progressed.
6. Re:Cheaper drives by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2014-08-13 03:16 · Score: 1
  
  I'm definitely in favor of more solidly adequate drives at attractive prices; but a quick look through newegg (without any effort at comparison shopping or grubbing for special offers) shows a fair selection at and under the $0.5/GB mark. The MX100 has a particularly good reputation for that price; but prices in that range haven't been a 'barrier' for some time.
7. Re:Cheaper drives by jones_supa · 2014-08-13 03:35 · Score: 1
  
  What barrier is this? Is there some reason why getting below $0.50/GB is difficult, or is it merely the result of gradually falling prices?
  How can people be so worked up about this "barrier" thing? It was obviously chosen as an interesting goal as it is exactly half a dollar per gigabyte. That's all there is to it.
8. Re:Cheaper drives by tlhIngan · 2014-08-13 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  It's falling prices, but it's a measure of how fast they're falling. Not too long ago, $1/GB was the "barrier" everyone wanted to cross. Before that it was probably $5/GB or something. Next we'll be looking to break $0.25/GB, then probably price parity with hard drives.
  Price parity with hard drives is hard, because SSDs only really get cheaper according to Moore's law (because each transistor is the storage element - the more of them you can stuff on a die, the more storage). But hard drive capacity and cost don't have to follow Moore's law.
  I mean, 4TB drives are only around $200 or so these days. And that gets you a 500GB SSD.
  The growth in hard drive capacity will have to significantly slow for an extended period of time (or halt) before SSDs can really catch up.
9. Re:Cheaper drives by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:47 · Score: 1
  
  SSDs in Apple devices aren't at 2 dollars a gig. Nice FUD tho...
10. Re:Cheaper drives by Anubis+IV · 2014-08-13 03:56 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, I was reading this and thinking to myself, "haven't they been under $0.50/GB for awhile now?" Just yesterday I was speccing out parts for a new PC, and the prices for SSDs went as low as $0.35/GB. They're still roughly an order of magnitude more expensive per GB than HDDs, but they're starting to get cheap enough that the difference is mattering less and less.
11. Re:Cheaper drives by Anubis+IV · 2014-08-13 04:09 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I love my Apple products, but let's be honest: their storage prices are outrageous. If we calculate the value they place on each GB based on the difference in prices between models that have different amounts of storage but are otherwise identical, the lowest they ever go with SSDs is $1.56/GB (which we see in their laptops and high-end iPads). For lower-end or mid-range iOS devices, the prices are as high as $6.25/GB (for the $100 16GB->32GB step up) or $3.13/GB (for the 32GB->64GB step up that costs $100).
  So, suggesting they are $2/GB seems fair to me, even if it doesn't universally apply across all of their products.
12. Re: Cheaper drives by Radish03 · 2014-08-13 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  I know the Samsung 840 1TB drive has been available for $500 or less for most of the year. I've had one since February. "Prices stay relatively constant for 6 months but LOOK new shiny!" is just less discussion worthy.
13. Re:Cheaper drives by otis+wildflower · 2014-08-13 04:09 · Score: 1
  
  Samsung's 840 EVO 500GB dipped below $0.5/GB unformatted on Newegg a couple weeks ago, with coupon.. IIRC the Crucial M550 512GB at newegg is below $0.5/GB without coupon..
14. Re:Cheaper drives by FuzzNugget · 2014-08-13 04:18 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Yup, I bought a 512GB Crucial MX100 for less than $250. It gives 90%+ the performance of Intel models I've used at 50% of the price, without using any nasty trickery like compression.
15. Re:Cheaper drives by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-08-13 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  Well, what is the next 'barrier' then? I vote for $0.40/GB. Then we can have another /. submission.
16. Re:Cheaper drives by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 04:49 · Score: 0
  
  Apple has the highest margins of any PC Maker. They make a lot of that on storage options. It's their business model. If you don't like it, don't buy apple. I don't!
  Apple's vertical integration and complete control of their design and supply chain also makes them the most profitable PC maker. Their margins are orders of magnitude better than everyone else's and they make the other manufactures green with envy. (Nobody else can do what Apple does, though, because you can't make premium devices by slapping your label on shit made by one of a handfuls of Chinese OEMs. An aluminum shell and fancy label does not a macbook pro make)
  Apple also packages in fairly high end SSDs. You can get similar devices (with a similar price) form makers like Samsung and Intel, and they aren't the budget low cost-per-gig devices like you see here. Higher quality flash, better quality control overall, etc.
17. Re:Cheaper drives by geekmux · 2014-08-13 04:55 · Score: 2
  
  SSDs in Apple devices aren't at 2 dollars a gig. Nice FUD tho...
  There is no Fear or Uncertainty when you walk into an Apple store. You are paying a premium for that hardware.
  And there is no Doubt as to what price you'll pay at Apple or any other store selling Apple products. You'll pay THE price.
  Let's just drop the FUD now.
18. Re:Cheaper drives by drachenfyre · 2014-08-13 05:00 · Score: 1
  
  The crucial MX100 will also run circles around this drive, and was reviewed here on Slashdot, including its pricepoint. How did this even make it through the submission queue.
19. Re:Cheaper drives by WhoBeDaPlaya · 2014-08-13 05:04 · Score: 1
  
  Crucial was late to the party. PNY already broke the $0.50/GB barrier using Silicon Motion's controller in their Optima line. Hell, even Samsung came close. I bought my 500GB 840 for $260 years ago.
20. Re:Cheaper drives by jellomizer · 2014-08-13 05:20 · Score: 1
  
  Well there will be a point where SSD are cheap enough for people to decide to pay a little extra to get them.
  As magnetic drives get cheaper per storage, they are sold at around the same price but with more storage. It isn't uncommon for someone to get a PC built with a few Terabytes of data in a magnetic drive. Or for the same price you can get a SSD rated in hundreds of Gigabytes.
  At a particular point the faster SSD drives with be affordable enough to offer the space that they need at a cost they want to spend.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
21. Re:Cheaper drives by qval · 2014-08-13 05:22 · Score: 2
  
  yes, but in smaller capacities, they will probably catch up before the end of the decade. At 320GB or so, a 250 GB SSD that costs $30 or $50 more will be a no brainer. I'm looking forward to the days when the cheapest laptops all come with SSDs because it's cheaper. It's kind of happening already with the 16 GB chromebooks, but a few more steps of moore's law will put that into very competitive capacities.
22. Re:Cheaper drives by mlts · 2014-08-13 05:23 · Score: 2
  
  There is a "good enough" point. What SSDs bring to the table is the fact that any number of processes can access the drive at virtually the same time without queuing up for the drive head to get in line with the data wanted, or hopefully find the data in the cache.
  What I see that may become more common are drive units that have 256 gigs or so of SSD space and several terabytes of HDD, presenting themselves to the OS as two separate volumes. This allows the OS and core applications to boot and quickly while still having a lot of space for documents and other files, perhaps even backups. So far, I've seen one drive do this, and I wouldn't be surprised to see other models follow.
23. Re:Cheaper drives by cdrudge · 2014-08-13 05:24 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  $2.02/GB flash drive
  Boom! Proved you wrong. ;)
24. Re:Cheaper drives by nuonguy · 2014-08-13 05:36 · Score: 1
  
  Doesn't Apple say they use 'enterprise grade' drives? Those aren't the same drives you buy from the shelf at Fry's or the daily sale at Newegg.
  I don't know if it's true or if that would justify the high prices if true. For that matter, I don't even know what would practically makes an 'enterprise grade' drive. High MTBF? Longer Warranty?
25. Re:Cheaper drives by jon3k · 2014-08-13 05:38 · Score: 1
  
  It's just more of a milestone.
26. Re:Cheaper drives by Anubis+IV · 2014-08-13 05:58 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I don't believe they make those claims explicitly, no, though they do tend to source higher-quality components, in general.
  When it comes to SSD quality, most of the distinctions would be in terms of the controllers that are used (which will play a large factor in reliability and speed) and whether it's an SLC, MLC, or TLC (single-, multi-, or triple-level cell) design. SLC has one bit per cell, MLC most often refers to two bits per cell (though it technically refers to more than that as well), while TLC has three bits per cell. 2-bit MLC and TLC are the most common in consumer-grade SSDs, with TLC becoming more common in the last year or two (e.g. Samsung 840 EVO).
27. Re:Cheaper drives by jones_supa · 2014-08-13 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  It can be $0.40/GB, but some might think that it's too fine-grained and we are almost past that point anyway. How about $0.25/GB (quarter dollar)?
28. Re:Cheaper drives by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 06:28 · Score: 0
  
  "Enterprise Grade" is probably the reject bin with a doubled price tag.
29. Re:Cheaper drives by NemoinSpace · 2014-08-13 06:30 · Score: 1
  
  The key to recognizing "enterprise" drives is the price. Usually it winds up being 94% higher price than what people in the enterprise use - which is the cheapest shit they can get their hands on.
  In a pinch, the enterprise guys will resort to canabalizing drives out of usb cases, where even the manufacturer has tried to mitigate the quality issues and burying them in low use cases. But the enterprise guys... those are the guys you need to ask. All in all, at a URE of 1x10^14 we are all pretty much hoping one of our backups is good. I remember the day my sys admin told me the daily backups were taking 23 hours. That was several weeks before he told me his test restore from backup failed. I REALLY LIKED THAT GUY.
30. Re:Cheaper drives by Mr+D+from+63 · 2014-08-13 07:06 · Score: 1
  
  OK. Its official $.25/GB is the next milestone!
31. Re:Cheaper drives by jones_supa · 2014-08-13 07:13 · Score: 1
  
  It's a deal!
32. Re:Cheaper drives by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 07:25 · Score: 0
  
  ... it's a measure of how fast they're falling. ...
  You are an idiot. Rate of change would be [$]/[t] e.g. -$0.05/month.
  This is a point value in units [Dollar] at a specific time (now). Furthermore, it's only for a specifically mentioned product and says very little about the current price of all other products.
  You could say "oh, yea, sure, but they other drives will have to compete and their prices will fall accordingly. the writing's on the wall." That might be true, but it might not. If other manufacturers cannot sell for less, they wont -- not for long anyway.
33. Re:Cheaper drives by rasmusbr · 2014-08-13 07:57 · Score: 1
  
  I got a 256GB MX100. I haven't done any testing, but the day to day experience is that it's good enough for everyday use. Small apps take about a second to launch and become responsive.
34. Re:Cheaper drives by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 07:58 · Score: 0
  
  plus the fact that Uncertainty and Doubt are pretty much interchangable...
35. Re:Cheaper drives by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 09:50 · Score: 0
  
  I love my Apple products, but let's be honest: their prices are outrageous.
  FTFY.
36. Re:Cheaper drives by kaatochacha · 2014-08-13 10:05 · Score: 1
  
  We laugh, I but I remember making precisely these calculations when normal Hard Drives went through the same process.
37. Re:Cheaper drives by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 11:30 · Score: 0
  
  There is no Fear or Uncertainty when you walk into an Apple store.
  Try telling that to your wallet.
38. Re:Cheaper drives by schlachter · 2014-08-13 16:25 · Score: 1
  
  Just to follow up on my $2.00/GB price barrier comment...for those of you who took it as an opportunity to bash Apple...
  I have a iPhone 5S, iPad Air, 15 MBP w/ Retina, and AppleTV. I think Apples products are amazing.
  I'm just bitter that they upcharge the SSD drives as much as they do. Granted, I understand they subsidize their margins with SSD and other upgrades, so if you buy the base model, you're getting pretty good value.
  
  --
  My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
39. Re:Cheaper drives by Anubis+IV · 2014-08-13 16:29 · Score: 1
  
  Not really. If you do a price comparison between comparable models from other manufacturers at the time that their products launch, they generally compare very favorably, more often than not (at least in the last few years) coming out as the cheaper option, at least when it comes to Macs.
  That said, when you're buying an Apple product, you're buying a complete package that likely has more in it than you want or need: stuff that you're paying for but will never use. Other manufacturers typically either permit more customization or have a wider array of products to choose from, allowing you to pick a cheaper option that is equal or better in the technical specs that matter to you. But at that point, you're no longer comparing comparable models, so the fact that they're cheaper doesn't say anything about whether or not Apple's prices are outrageous.
  Apple products are expensive, but that's because they're aimed at the premium end of the market. Whether or not they're outrageously expensive should be judged on the basis of how they compare against similar models, and, in general, they compare quite well, suggesting their prices aren't outrageous at all.
40. Re:Cheaper drives by Anubis+IV · 2014-08-13 16:38 · Score: 1
  
  I'm honestly in the same boat. Apple TV (third gen), 2011 Mac mini (hoping they announce an update once Broadwell arrives), iPhone 5s, and used to own an iPad 2 (I plan to get an Air 2 when they come out since I didn't replace the iPad after I sold it). I too love my Apple products, but hate the odd markups. I learned long ago to go cheap on RAM and upgrade it yourself, and I even set up my own Fusion Drive on my 2011 Mac mini by installing an SSD to go with the HDD and having some fun in Terminal, but you can't quite do anything like that with their mobile devices, unfortunately. At least not very easily.
41. Re:Cheaper drives by Jesus_666 · 2014-08-13 22:30 · Score: 1
  
  I like Apple as much as the next guy but their add-on prices are silly. The fact that their hardware tends to be good in general doesn't excuse the fact that they charge twice as much for an upgrade as you'd pay on the open market. This is obvious when looking at RAM where you pay huge markups on modules with identical stats made by the same company.
  
  That's why I don't like their Retina lineup - less customer-serviceability (and parts in more expensive form factors) mean less independence from Apple's horrible add-on prices.
  
  --
  USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
42. Re:Cheaper drives by Anubis+IV · 2014-08-14 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  I'm in complete agreement.
43. Re:Cheaper drives by cthulhu11 · 2014-08-14 05:01 · Score: 1
  
  System vendors have always been like that. All of them, not just Apple.
44. Re:Cheaper drives by Lord+Lemur · 2014-08-14 06:12 · Score: 1
  
  We have had sub $300 4TB drives for years. HDD have really stopped moving in both capacity and price.
45. Re:Cheaper drives by bhiestand · 2014-08-19 03:55 · Score: 1
  
  No, any enterprise that cares about its data or uptime will use "enterprise" SSDs*. All** the big storage players have been using enterprise rated/labeled SSDs, and many of them use "enterprise" HDDs as well. So that's a pretty big chunk of the storage market. I'm not saying EMC doesn't have a high markup, but if you're using EMC storage with SSDs, you're using enterprise SSDs.
  There are a bunch of reasons to use enterprise stuff in other situations as well, but I'm not going to try to debate the technicals right now.
  As a side note, it sounds like your company is having pretty serious issues with storage and backup. What are they going to do when data grows a bit and daily backups start taking 25 hours?
  *Or have a completely different architecture to sidestep the problem. It's harder than it sounds.
  **There may be exceptions?
  
  --
  SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
As do you by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2014-08-13 02:58 · Score: 4, Funny

> 50 cents per GiB
I prefer to think of it as 0.0007 cents per body part closeup.

--
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
0.50$ per Gb was already broken by Eloking · 2014-08-13 02:59 · Score: 1

I've saw 1TB SSD under 500 bucks on amazon for a long time. Maybe "Solid State Drives Break the 50 Cents Per GiB Barrier for average user" would be a better title.

--
Elok
1. Re:0.50$ per Gb was already broken by WuphonsReach · 2014-08-13 05:17 · Score: 2
  
  Enterprise quality SSDs are still $1.00 to $2.50 per GB.
  
  The Intel DC S3500 is only about $1/GB for a 600GB version. Which is not bad for a drive suitable for use in a server. The S3700 series is closer to $2/GB.
  
  (Both of those drive series have the capacitor inside to enable the SSD to shutdown cleanly in cases where the drive loses power.)
  
  --
  Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
Performance by MozeeToby · 2014-08-13 03:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

If SSD's had come first we'd be talking about how HDD's finally broke the 3ms latency barrier or the or the 1 Gb/s barrier. SSDs' aren't about capacity, that's just not what they're for. While it's certainly nice that you can have a usable amount of space for a decent price, 120GB is enough SSD space to see 95% of the benefits for 60% of users. If laptop manufacturers would make 2 bay laptops standard that 60% would jump to 95%.
1. Re:Performance by harrkev · 2014-08-13 03:13 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Bingo. Laptop users. Laptops are on the way up, desktops are dying. And since the higher-end laptops (ultrabooks) are even ditching optical drives to save size and weight, what do you think are the odds that they will make space for a 2nd drive. In fact, I would not be surprised of the 2.5" drive bays went away entirely in the next three years, to be replaced by slots (probably PCIe or something similar). Unless you are going for a larger device -- gaming or workstation laptop, you are not going to have the luxury of two drive bays.
  
  --
  "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
2. Re:Performance by angel'o'sphere · 2014-08-13 03:15 · Score: 1
  
  I would not want to replace the SSD in my Mac Book Air with a HD ... and I doubt there is any that fits.
  For you it might be only speed (sad ;) ) for me it is how long the machine is running ... 14h with my way of using it is quite superb.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
3. Re:Performance by plopez · 2014-08-13 03:20 · Score: 3
  
  Laptops, hand held devised, tablets, space exploration verticals, drones, and remote sensing equipment are probably only a few examples.
  
  --
  putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
4. Re:Performance by timeOday · 2014-08-13 03:29 · Score: 2
  
  No desktop should be HDD-only. The are too slow. Conventional wisdom used to be that maxxing out RAM was the first thing to do, but after even 8GB (which isn't all that much in a desktop any more) I would get an SSD for it before anything else.
5. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:52 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  desktops are dying
  LOL. People have been saying that for over a decade and it ain't happening. It seems like the myth lives on by being rekindled in new generations of geeks who weren't around to see the prognosticating last go 'round.
6. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:59 · Score: 0
  
  I'd say 250GB, not 120GB. I've used both, and I find 250 is enough to not worry about running out of space (while using a HDD for media storage), while a 120 GB always left me with less than 10GB to play with.
7. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 04:00 · Score: 0
  
  With SSDs morphing into M.2 cards the size of a RAM stick, we will indeed see an increasing number of laptops with two "drive bays", one for a 2.5" SATA drive and one for an M.2 module.
8. Re:Performance by thejynxed · 2014-08-13 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  I differ, in that I would make sure it had a top-rated and reliable power supply (Corsair or Seasonic) and a powerful GPU (currently the best price to power ratios are the 750 GTX Ti and the R9 270 series from everything I've been reading) before it had an SSD any day of the week.
  Why? I've had SSDs bite the dust more than once, very early into their supposed life cycles at rates that should be an absolute embarrassment to the engineering teams at the manufacturers in question.
  
  --
  @Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
9. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 05:03 · Score: 0
  
  You are a decade late. Now it's laptops which are dying against tablets. Desktops don't anymore have the mass-market that could die much further.
10. Re:Performance by AmiMoJo · 2014-08-13 05:15 · Score: 1
  
  Many "ultrabook" class laptops moved to mini PCIe SSDs a few years ago. My NEC LaVie X has a socketed 250GB Toshiba drive that I am considering upgrading for one that supports Opal V2. I can the move it to my server machine.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
11. Re:Performance by gaiageek · 2014-08-13 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  desktops are dying
  LOL. People have been saying that for over a decade and it ain't happening. It seems like the myth lives on by being rekindled in new generations of geeks who weren't around to see the prognosticating last go 'round.
  I agree that they're not dying as in becoming obsolete, but they're certainly dying in terms of consumer demand. I'd guess that 90-95% of my friends don't own and desktop and will never buy one again.
  
  Add to that the fact that many companies automatically retire systems after 3 years (warranty expired) resulting in lots of incredibly capable enterprise-class desktops available for under $200 through Craigslist. Really, unless you're a gamer, there's little reason to buy a brand new desktop as a consumer.
  
  --
  www.gaiageek.com
12. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 05:43 · Score: 0
  
  What tasks are you performing that your performance bottleneck is more often disk I/O than lack of memory?
13. Re:Performance by timeOday · 2014-08-13 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  I think SSDs are not unlike power supplies in that some poor quality options are available so you can't just shop price. So far I've stuck with Intel and Samsung SSDs, passing up cheaper options, with good results. As the technology matures I suppose that budget brands will become a safer bet. But getting back to this article, I would not be first in line to buy a new model OCZ.
14. Re:Performance by TheRaven64 · 2014-08-13 06:00 · Score: 1
  
  A little over a decade ago was when Apple announced that laptop sales had passed desktop sales for them. This wasn't surprising, because their desktops were far less competitive than their laptops (and no one bought an Apple desktop to save money). The rest of the industry followed about two years later. We've been in a world where more laptops are sold than desktops for almost a decade. Even accounting for the fact that laptops are replaced rather than upgraded, there are now more people who use laptops as their only computer than there are desktop users.
  
  --
  I am TheRaven on Soylent News
15. Re:Performance by sexconker · 2014-08-13 06:07 · Score: 2
  
  What tasks are you performing that your performance bottleneck is more often disk I/O than lack of memory?
  Are you joking? 99% of shit you run will spend more time reading/writing from disk than waiting for free RAM.
  And I have 2 high end SSDs in RAID 0.
16. Re:Performance by NemoinSpace · 2014-08-13 06:46 · Score: 1
  
  Turning the computer on usually does it for me. That and clicking my left mouse button. While we're on the subject, how much crack are you up to these days?
17. Re:Performance by penguinoid · 2014-08-13 07:34 · Score: 1
  
  Laptops are on the way up, desktops are dying.
  Lol nope. Laptops are on the way up, smartphones are on the way up, tablets are on the way up, computerized glasses are on the way up, brain-computer interfaces are on the way up, and desktops are on the way up.
  Want to kill off the desktops? Find something with better display and user input.
  
  --
  Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
18. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 08:08 · Score: 0
  
  Yep, I haven't touched a desktop computer in years.. Don't know many people that own one, and fewer use one at work every year. They might not disappear completely but will be come a much smaller niche, and because of that I think that the price advantage will disappear.
  Laptops are pretty damn powerful these days, and the added flexibility of mobility and near silent operation trumps most things, plus having a docking station with a nice big monitor negates almost all of the negatives.
  It may cost a little more, but its a better way to live.
  (Lives/works on Macbook Pros and Thinkpad T series)
19. Re:Performance by harrkev · 2014-08-13 08:14 · Score: 1
  
  Want to kill off the desktops? Find something with better display and user input.
  How about the same display and user input. Have you not heard of USB and HDMI? A laptop can be easily connected to an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor. I do this all the time! Since even a relatively low-end computer is more than good enough for most tasks, there is really little down-side to this approach. The extra expense is justified because you can carry it with you.
  
  --
  "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
20. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  You know what's even better than carrying a laptop around? Not doing so.
  You know what's better than plugging your laptop into external things before you are able to work? Having them already connected.
  The magic of having several desktops and internet. As a bonus you gain certain amount of fault tolerance as well ;)
21. Re:Performance by Damarkus13 · 2014-08-13 09:43 · Score: 1
  
  mSATA isn't mPCIe. They may be the same form-factor, but mSATA is hooked up to a SATA bus and mPCIe is connected to a PCIe bus. They aren't interchangeable.
22. Re:Performance by AbRASiON · 2014-08-13 10:53 · Score: 1
  
  The slot you're thinking of already exists, comes on some motherboards (my new HTPC Mini ITX board has one) and it's becoming standard on laptops.
  Current sizes dictate they can do 500gb drives on the micro cards which go into the slots.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
23. Re:Performance by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-14 07:55 · Score: 0
  
  LOL
  I'm betting $10 that you didn't actually laugh out loud.
Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by omems · 2014-08-13 03:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

After my only two Vertex drives spontaneously died when the power was cut, I'll never own another OCZ product. This turned out to be a common problem with the first gen Vertex, and I will not forgive their engineers. Thankfully my backups worked. +1 for Acronis.
1. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Admiral_Grinder · 2014-08-13 03:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I hear your song, but I heard it before by the HDD cover band before the SSD members were even born. All hardware is prone to not coming back up after the power was cut (or turned off in the case of a laptop I have), SSD is not special in this. It appears you have heard it, but if not, tune in to the greatest hits channel and you will hear the number 1 song for the past 30 years: "Always have working up to date backups". I'm glad your backups work.
2. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by jones_supa · 2014-08-13 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  After the Toshiba acquisition, the designs and quality assurance procedures for OCZ drives have most likely been completely revamped.
3. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 04:00 · Score: 0
  
  ...you think *engineers* have any power in how a corporation ships its products!???
  BAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAAAA!!!!!!
  You *must* be an engineer to have such a naive and egotistical view. Engineers are nothing but a tragic impediment in the way to more profit.
4. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by thsths · 2014-08-13 04:02 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  >All hardware is prone to not coming back up after the power was cut (or turned off in the case of a laptop I have), SSD is not special in this.
  But OCZ SSDs were. The failure of OCZ drives doubled the industry average failure rate, that is how bad they were. Returns were in the double digit percents.
  And still I hear your statement that this could happen to any company. Which is true. But OCZ ignored the problem and pretended it did not exist, instead of showing a bit of generosity towards the (rightly) disappointed customers. This I will not forget, and like me many others.
5. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 04:24 · Score: 0
  
  That may be so, but OCZ's drives were notorious for their unreliability. I was already aware of major problems with various OCZ models (and wouldn't have touched them with a bargepole) when my boss bought in a bunch of OCZ drives- for retail resale- that were *way* cheaper than the equivalent capacity models from other manufacturers (dubiously inexpensive even accounting for the fact that OCZ were already some of the cheapest around).
  
  I looked into it, and sure enough there were apparently problems with that model. It was no big surprise when around half the drives were returned as faulty over the next couple of months.
  
  OCZ knowingly and deliberately cut corners to offer "high" performance at such a low price. For example, as "MiamiCanes" explained:-
  
  A lot of OCZ's problems were self-inflicted, with Sandforce's active complicity. [Sandforce designed the controllers OCZ- amongst others- used.]
  
  For example, Sandforce's engineers came up with an ugly, performance-killing hack that allowed the drive to avoid corruption if it were powered-down mid-write so they could officially claim that the ultracapacitor was "optional" in "cost-sensitive applications". OCZ built drives without the ultracap, then had Sandforce furnish them with firmware that DISABLED THAT SAFETY MEASURE to avoid killing their drives' write performance in benchmarks.
  It's worth remembering- of course- that the OCZ referred to above is the original company that went bankrupt and whose assets were bought by Toshiba to form the "new" OCZ referred to in the story. How much of the "taint" of OCZ's original reputations remains- or should remain- is open to discussion.
6. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 04:55 · Score: 0
  
  OCZ has put out some real shit devices in the past. Just objectively bad products with bad design decisions. Things like intentionally setting features in the firmware that cause the problems you describe, but also grant extra speed.
  OCZ went bankrupt and got bought out by Toshiba. Toshiba is one of the leading flash makers, and now have their own controller too. SSDs have come a long way in the past few years, both in terms of performance and expectations of reliably.
  It's worth giving these new devices a second look because they're probably more "Toshiba" devices than they are OCZ.
7. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by angel'o'sphere · 2014-08-13 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  For what obscure reason should an SSD not come back after a power cut? Care to explain?
  Filesystem error, because a directory was not written, ok, but a haedware failure, I would say: no way! (And same for a HD, why should there be a hardware problem on next boot after a power loss?)
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
8. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by gnasher719 · 2014-08-13 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  For what obscure reason should an SSD not come back after a power cut? Care to explain?
  When you tell your drive to write a block of data, SSD drives can't just write that block. They can only erase complete 128KB or 256KB pages and write into empty pages. So writing a single block always means a certain amount of bookkeeping information, and complex data structures stored somewhere. If that information isn't flushed properly, it's actually quite likely that a drive could fail after being powered down.
  
  The problem is that making sure that the drive information is always valid after power goes down slows the drive down (unless you have enterprise drives with some huge capacitor that makes sure they can write missing data even when your computer stops supplying power to the drive). And if you care more about benchmarks than about keeping data stored safely, you get drives that don't work after being powered down.
9. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Hamsterdan · 2014-08-13 06:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  And Intel had drives that reverted to 8GB after a reboot, IBM had the Deathstars, Quantum had their Fireballs, Seagate, well, about every model between 500 and 1TB.
  *everyone* in the industry comes out with bad products.
  
  --
  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
10. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 07:05 · Score: 0
  
  I hear technicians who got the honor of fixing Toshiba laptops affectionately nicknamed them To-shit-ba laptops. I wouldn't keep my hopes up with regards to quality assurance.
11. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Luckyo · 2014-08-13 08:11 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  You don't understand. OCZ has a history of a very specific form of manufacturing and marketing strategy.
  What they did for a long time was take a SSD controller that every else uses, and then disable every single data safety feature they can get away with so they can squeeze a little extra speed in benchmarks out of it. Then they actively market themselves as "fastest and cheapest SSD maker". The obvious result is that their drives are very fast, very cheap and very unreliable.
  This wasn't about one model being off. This is their consistent strategy and why their returns were over double industry standard and sitting in double digits of percent. Their strategy was to sell a lot of drives with marketing hype to overcome the costs from massive amount of failed drives.
  It failed and company went bankrupt and had to be bought out by Toshiba. And now it seems to continue with the trend.
12. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Luckyo · 2014-08-13 08:15 · Score: 1
  
  Controller failure. This is about as "obscure" as "engine failure" is "obscure" on a car.
13. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 08:32 · Score: 0
  
  You are correct. OCZ ssd's have failed for LOTS of people, me included.
  I prefer the OS speed, large data storage model: ie SSD holds the OS, and Harddrives hold the data. Performance is still really good, and when the ssd dies, no big deal just pull it our, reinstall linux and continue where you left off. All user settings and data are untouched. No need to back up the OS drive either.
14. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 08:47 · Score: 0
  
  Here's the thing you need to know about SSD reliability: it's better than, but still comparable to (I just mean within one order of magnitude), disk reliability. And there are no SMART warnings when they start getting iffy. Instead of seeing attr 198 "Offline_Uncorrectable" become a nonzero number (time to swap the disk), the symptom of failure is that one day, it just doesn't work at all. Sudden death.
  Thusly, no matter what brand you use, you do RAID1 pairs. Or triplets, if you're paranoid. Just like with disks.
15. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 11:01 · Score: 0
  
  at least it was something complicated that broke, i got one ocz power supply to break in just 2 years, ive never, ever, had a power supply break faster than that.
  i agree with you, ill never buy anythin from them, i would not even buy a computer case, without ps or fans or anything, just the metal, i dont trust them to be able to even do THAT thing properly, it would probably be radioactive or the paint would give you aids or something
  fuck ocz
16. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by thegarbz · 2014-08-13 14:18 · Score: 1
  
  Of course. The question is what do you do when you get into that situation. OCZ was bought by Toshiba, now the question is will the follow the IBM Deathstar route and bring the product back to quality under a new name, or will they follow the Quantum Fireball, into Maxtor which then failed spectacularly only to be absorbed by a competitor?
  Then there's history. IBM, Quantum, Seagate, they all had a dodgy line here or there, all of them have reasonable warranties and do a good job of repair. OCZ had a long history of QC problems with failures of drives across ALL of their lines. They were actively hostile towards users and do the legal minimum in their RMA practices, even then sometimes only when pressured.
  Some companies produce dodgy products.
  Some companies are dodgy.
  OCZ was the latter, time will tell if Toshiba turns this around.
17. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-14 04:32 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, I need drives that I can rely on for more than a few months. I RMA'd a couple of OCZs, but when the replacements died too I just threw them away and bought a different brand.
18. Re:Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by phorm · 2014-08-14 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  A lot of that came down to drives that shipped with crappy firmware. It was *fast* sure, but it was horribly fault-intolerant.
  I had similar issues with one of my OCZ's. I copied the data off to a different SSD and replaced it. Later, I flashed the firmware and tried in a different machine. No issues with that one since
Great ad by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:09 · Score: 0

Really, how much advertising fluff do we need in the description?
So much SPAM... by bobbied · 2014-08-13 03:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don't see how this whole article is anything but a commercial advertisement. $0.50/Gig was broken a long time ago, at least for your average consumer. I have a 500GB SSD in a laptop that was well under $0.50/GB from a national brick and mortar retailer.
So this is just more evidence how far Slash-dot has fallen? Come on folks, I don't mind the banner ads on the website, you all have to eat, but can we dispense with these kinds of stories?

--
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
1. Re:So much SPAM... by Just+Some+Guy · 2014-08-13 04:13 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yeah, I bought a 1000GB 840 EVO from Amazon for $495 back in March. That's about as mainstream as you can possibly get.
  
  --
  Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
2. Re:So much SPAM... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  "News for Nerds, sometimes several months late".
  Don't forget to look for the reposts down the road.
3. Re:So much SPAM... by flopsquad · 2014-08-13 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  Agh spent my last mod point before seeing this! AC you get sharper every day.
  
  --
  Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.
Huh... by thevirtualcat · 2014-08-13 03:14 · Score: -1

I didn't realize OCZ was still in business.
1. Re:Huh... by pushing-robot · 2014-08-13 03:25 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  OCZ's storage division was bought by Toshiba, who now sells Toshiba drives under the OCZ brand.
  Not sure what the thinking was on that one.
  
  --
  How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
2. Re:Huh... by thevirtualcat · 2014-08-13 03:39 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  There are so many analogies I could make for that.
  Ford Motor Company eliminates Ford brand and replaces it with Edsel.
  Microsoft changes Windows 7 to Windows Vista Second Edition.
  Cisco to deprecate Cisco trademark in favor of Linksys. *
  * Yes, I realize that Cisco no longer owns Linksys.
3. Re:Huh... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:39 · Score: 1
  
  1) Buy crappy brand cheap.
  2) Sell quality stuff with it for a couple of years to improve brand value.
  3) Sell brand to someone who needs a quality brand.
  4) Profit!
  If you sell exactly the same product but with different brands and the same price you aren't really losing anything on it. The customer might not buy the brand with the bad reputation but if they do the income you get there offsets what you lost on not making the sale on your other brand.
  If you have a good manufacturing process you can build up multiple brands simultaneously and then sell off one every now and then and let some shoddy person exploit the brand while they run it to the ground.
  Look at the car industry, people are still buying cars based on brand quality from 30 years ago, completely oblivious of that they are assembled from parts that were made in the same production line.
4. Re:Huh... by Hadlock · 2014-08-13 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  Did they retain any of the technology/staff, or did they just buy the toxic OCZ brand? With failure rates for the entire brand above 5%, and approaching seventeen (17%) percent I wouldn't use an OCZ branded SSD at any cost. Imagine debugging a system with a failing drive, and then the labor required to RMA, replace, replace again, and finally buy a quality drive. Screw that.
  
  --
  moox. for a new generation.
5. Re:Huh... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 04:04 · Score: 0
  
  They should have just rebranded, it's going to take years for the fear of OCZ SSDs dying like flies to subside.
6. Re:Huh... by Dogtanian · 2014-08-13 04:07 · Score: 1
  
  If you have a good manufacturing process you can build up multiple brands simultaneously and then sell off one every now and then and let some shoddy person exploit the brand while they run it to the ground.
  Sounds like a close relative of "zombie brands", i.e. people buying out the brand (and little or nothing else) of bankrupt companies, then either slapping it on generic low-end product from a no-name OEM Chinese manufacturer, or whoring it out on a case-by-case basis to the highest third-party bidder, typically itself just a distributor of random generic tat upon which the brand will be slapped.
  
  Consumers- often older ones who were familiar with the brand for many years and do not realise that the original company went bankrupt- are then more likely to buy such goods on the "strength" of the brand and its reputation. Which is obviously meaningless now, but they don't know that.
  
  Polaroid is an example of this. The original company went bankrupt well over ten years ago. The assets were bought out by some random marketing operation, with only (AFAIK) the film-based cameras being "true" Polaroid products (*). Everything else- including "their" digital cameras of the time- were just rebranded generic goods with the name used under license. Polaroid was never even a manufacturer of TV and video equipment in the first place, but the name was used to sell generally mediocre flat-panel televisions anyway.
  
  Ironically, the "new" Polaroid itself went bankrupt under shady circumstances, and was bought out again. The new owners at least seemed to be attempting to exploit the heritage with some respect (e.g. hiring Lady Ga Ga as the "creative director" a few years back- even if it *was* a blatant publicity stunt- and using her name in connection with would-be high-end photo printers). But they're still whoring it out for LCD TVs and the like.
  
  (*) Insofar as the "new" Polaroid was "true" anyway.
  
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  "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
7. Re:Huh... by thevirtualcat · 2014-08-13 04:19 · Score: 2
  
  5%, and those are just the ones that outright failed. I've never had an OCZ SSD where I didn't have to update the firmware to get it to work right.
8. Re:Huh... by AmiMoJo · 2014-08-13 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  OCZ is a better known brand in the west, and I guess OCZ's sales guy convinced them the name wasn't tarnished beyond repair.
  It is quite common for Japanese companies to either create or buy an existing western brand to sell their stuff under. Nissan created Datsun. Mitsubishi created Verbatim. I think NEC used to have a computer brand in Europe too, which was solder to Acer... Packard Bell? I think Toyota has a US brand called Scion or something.
  Part of it is to make sure that the parent company's reputation isn't damaged if the foreign company screws up. The goods they sell overseas tend to be heavily "localized" in terms of features and models, and sometimes having a non-Japanese name is part of that. Ironically some western brands set up their own Japanese sounding trade names like Matsui in the UK, because everyone realized that British electronics where shit and Japanese ones extremely high quality and reliable.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
9. Re:Huh... by luciano.moretti · 2014-08-13 06:26 · Score: 1
  
  Ask IBM Storage Solutions how fast tech people forget a crappy storage product.
  HGST is still fighting the "Deathstar" moniker 12+ years later. I still hear of people who won't touch them with a 10 ft pole, even though besides that one model line they have had a solid performance history both before and after.
10. Re:Huh... by AmiMoJo · 2014-08-13 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  Hitachi are very popular in Japan and with professionals, i.e. people who can read stats on reliability and appreciate professional level support. They are not really a consumer brand. Same with Toshiba, who don't even sell to consumers any more.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
11. Re:Huh... by Luckyo · 2014-08-13 08:19 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed. I still know people that won't touch seagate after 7200.11 barracuda controller fiasco (I lost one drive to it as well).
  They replaced them all upon request with 7200.12s that had no controller problem, and I do still have ~14 year old 7200.7s running, so I know it's a one freak model. But many people still won't touch them after getting burned.
  OCZ was basically nothing but 7200.11. Massive failure rates.
flash/disk/tape ratios still stand by peter303 · 2014-08-13 03:14 · Score: 2

Cheapest retail magnetic disks are about 3 cents a gigabyte and a fraction of cent gigabyte for digital tape.

Unless one is a video hog a terabyte should be enough for anybody. And I'd stream most new content anyways. I only read/watch most stuff once.
1. Re:flash/disk/tape ratios still stand by wierd_w · 2014-08-13 03:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  This is a little short sighted. Video files are not th eonly kinds of file that have grown demonstrably larger over time, due to "hey, everyone has the spaces these days, let's fill it! It's CHEAP!" being a development consideration.
  Be it audio files (FLAAC vs MP3), Images (jpg vs png vs bmp vs RAW), Documents (RTF vs DOC vs DOCX) 3D object files (OBJ vs MAX vs BLEND) and of course, application files (I've seen 10mb and larger DLLs and other libraries become commonplace these days, where previously they were a few kilobytes to meg or two, with 5mb being 'large')
  What you mean to say, is that 1TB is more than enough for anyone, "right now."
  4 years from now, not so much.
2. Re:flash/disk/tape ratios still stand by thegarbz · 2014-08-13 15:00 · Score: 1
  
  Titanfall comes in at a lovely 50GB or so.
  I've stopped attempting to keep my game collection on the an SSD.
3. Re:flash/disk/tape ratios still stand by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-14 05:28 · Score: 0
  
  1TB is more than enough for anyone
  My LIDAR setup generates over 1TB an hour.
  Go fuck yourself.
4. Re:flash/disk/tape ratios still stand by Man+Eating+Duck · 2014-08-14 10:40 · Score: 1
  
  I've stopped attempting to keep my game collection on the an SSD.
  Install all games to an HDD, and only keep the games you're actually playing on the SSD. Under Windows 7 I use a 120GB SSD for OS and the 2-3 games I'm currently playing by using Steam Mover. Since it's simply a GUI for a few cmd commands (mklink being the central one) it'll work for any directory you point it at, not just Steam games, and it's very robust.
  If you're on Linux you're likely already familiar with some ways of doing this, if not I can give you a few pointers :)
  
  --
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5. Re:flash/disk/tape ratios still stand by thegarbz · 2014-08-15 03:57 · Score: 1
  
  Well as said Titanfall is 50GB. It's the game I'm currently playing and it's definitely not going on the SSD.I used to do what you suggest, now I just don't bother anymore.
  But if you were suggesting this as a workaround for the GP, remember that some computers don't have space for 2 storage devices, namely nearly every laptop on the market.
reliability by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:16 · Score: 0

I still trust rotating platter drives more than SSDs. We've all had platter drives fail and have been successful in recovering data or notice that a failure is coming. When SSDs fail they do in a spectacular way. You have no way or warning for getting data back.
1. Re:reliability by thevirtualcat · 2014-08-13 03:28 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, most SSDs support SMART and/or have their own monitoring system. Unless you're buying bargain basement SSDs, most of them have perfectly servicable lifecycle management.
  (Purely as an example, here's Samsung's listing of the SMART attributes in their SSDs: http://www.samsung.com/global/...)
  That said, yes. When SSDs get the "computer will no longer boot to the OS" point of their lifecycle, you're a lot less likely to be able to recover any information. But, like magnetic disks, by the time you get to that point, you've generally been ignoring other symptoms.
2. Re:reliability by RatherBeAnonymous · 2014-08-13 04:08 · Score: 2
  
  I disagree with this faith in SMART to provide aqueduct warning. So does Google.
  
  Out of all failed drives, over 56% of them have no count in any of the four strong SMART signals, namely scan errors, reallocation count, offline reallocation, and probational count.
  
  We conclude that it is unlikely that SMART data alone can be effectively used to build models that predict failures of individual drives.
  http://static.googleuserconten...
  Google's analysis was of spinning hard disks, but I can not believe that SMART is somehow better at monitoring SSDs than spinning hard disks. I have personally had drives that pass every smart test and hard drive scan, but click and buzz in unnatural ways. Likewise, I have had SSDs suddenly fail that were, by all external tests before and after the failure, operating within expected parameters. It doesn't help that many SSDs have a habit of rendering the stored data inaccessible with no chance of recovery when they loose power. Spinning HD manufacturers solved that problem decades ago with self-parking read-write heads. Then again, there is no SMART test that's going to predict when an electrical component is going to suddenly burst into flames. (I've seen it happen!) With a spinning HD I could replace the logic board or send the disk out for recovery and get that data back, probably unscathed. With an SSD the odds would be in no-one's favor.
  When it comes to SSDs, the PC vendors need to step up their game on data redundancy. SSD Raid 1 arrays or integrated backup to cheaper storage should be standard configurations.
3. Re:reliability by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 04:50 · Score: 0
  
  Sadly there is no way to make copies of data inside of a SSD that you regularly update to enure no data is lost.
  Someone should invent a system like that.... maybe give it a catchy name like "backup"
4. Re:reliability by Hamsterdan · 2014-08-13 06:29 · Score: 1
  
  1- Backup
  2- Backup
  3- Backup
  And when SSDs fail, it's not more spectacular than a HDD that won't spin, or a head crash, or its controller going MIA. (you can't swap boards on most newer drives anymore, so good luck getting the data back)
  
  --
  I've got better things to do tonight than die.
5. Re:reliability by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 08:01 · Score: 0
  
  Do you run the vendor provided tools that will give you a health report based on data beyond SMART that is built into most major brands of SSDs?
  THey will certainly tell you where you're at in the life cycle, the expected life (write ops) remaining as well as totals of data written, etc...
  SMART is only one indicator among several to life expectancy of an SSD.
6. Re:reliability by deroby · 2014-08-13 08:34 · Score: 1
  
  Experience shows differently : SSD works perfect day 1, isn't SEEN any more by the BIOS the day after. Tried on different machines afterwards. And no, nothing special happened to the laptop in the time between. Simply went to the hotel and back to the client the day after.
  (And no, it wasn't an OCZ but for the love of god don't remember if it was a Samsung or Crucial)
  I've never had that happen to a HDD. That doesn't mean I've never had spinning platters fail on me; but usually things there start by either
  * SMART reporting non-recoverable errors
  * major slow-down of the entire system for no apparent good reason, usually accompanied by a HDD-LED that simply simply keeps on all the time.
  In all cases I was able to recover 99% of the data on there. In one case I had to put the disk in the freezer (USB enclosure) as it would only work when the temperature was _very_ low. Sure it always took a long time to do and was a PITA, but I still prefer that to the failing SSD.
  I've heard the theory over and over again that an SSD that runs out of writes will settle as a read-only disk so you might not be able to run an OS from it any more, but surely can mount it as a data-drive to recover all your info.... In practice all I've heard/read/experienced is that things look A-OK for one moment and go poof the next.
  Don't get me wrong, I love my Samsung EVO and I've revived my dad's pc with my old Intel SSD; but making sure to backup things on a regular basis is absolutely crucial.
  
  --
  If there is one thing to be learned on slashdot, it has to be sarcasm.
7. Re:reliability by thegarbz · 2014-08-13 15:02 · Score: 1
  
  No they just need to step up in basic design theory, such as power failure compensation.
  There's nothing inherently bad about SSDs which would make them unreliable compared to HDDs under any normal workload. The problem is they appear to fail with out of spec errors such as powerdips or similar powersupply problems.
It's a mental barrier by Sycraft-fu · 2014-08-13 03:16 · Score: 1

The result is just one of gradually falling prices, but it is one where it is cheap enough to interest more people. At that price the drives are now "cheap enough" for them.
1. Re:It's a mental barrier by WuphonsReach · 2014-08-13 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly. The magic price point for business use was when $150 would buy you a big enough drive to meet the needs of 90% of your office workers. The cost is small enough that it's worth spending the extra amount of money in order to get a machine that performs much better then a traditional drive. It means less twiddling of thumbs of your employees while they wait on a slow hard drive. (More common then a lot of people think, they've just grown used to the slowness.)
  
  Personally, I think that happened at the $1.20/GB mark. It made 80-120GB SSD drives cheap enough for office machines that you'd recoup the savings in a year or two. Either through improved productivity, or not having to replace the machine for another 2-3 years.
  
  As the price gets lower and lower, unless you need >500GB of raw storage, it makes more and more sense to just go SSD instead of traditional. And maybe by next year, that break point will be 1TB, then 2TB.
  
  --
  Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
ocz? by gTsiros · 2014-08-13 03:29 · Score: 0

yeah, no thanks. After having been burned horribly by ocz, i'm not touching anything carrying their name, no matter who actually builds them.

--
Looking for people to chat about multicopters, coding, music. skype: gtsiros
1. Re:ocz? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 03:50 · Score: 0
  
  Me too but I still might buy if it comes pre-RMAed with a shipping label.
Why no 1 Tb version? by Torp · 2014-08-13 04:10 · Score: 0

OCZ's reliability aside, why no 1Tb model? Believe it or not, I need most of the space for work purposes (huge source trees, virtual machines etc). A drive that just fits my OS wouldn't help at all.

--
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
1. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Lumpy · 2014-08-13 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  If your OS takes 512Mb then you really need to switch to something else. I fit my OS, all software and all the files I need 24/7 access to on my 512 SSD just fine and that is with a couple of 40gb VM images on it.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
2. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 05:28 · Score: 0
  
  Mb? Really? You don't know the difference between Megabits and GigaBytes? You're off by a factor of 8192.
3. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 06:00 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe he still uses DOS and boots off a floppy drive?
4. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by sexconker · 2014-08-13 06:21 · Score: 1
  
  Mb? Really? You don't know the difference between Megabits and GigaBytes? You're off by a factor of 8192.
  Not quite. You're confusing Mb with Mib and GB with GiB.
  There are 1000 MB in a GB, not 1024. This was changed a while ago. I don't know why people haven't adopted the new rules. Science uses 1000 for everything, except for some things where it makes sense like temperature, and some things where other bases are much more convenient, like time.
  But for computers we need to use 1000. Even though with computers things are binary and we need to deal with factors of 2 all the time, people might get confused between 1000 and 1024 when they buy a hard drive. So for science purposes we need to use 1000. I know this is confusing, but once everyone starts using 1000 for Kb and 1024 for Kib, and we update all the old references that people already wrote, it'll be much easier for everyone.
  The next step is to change a byte to be 10 bits. Don't worry - the IEC and SI are already working on the best way to force this bullshit down your throat, too.
5. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Belial6 · 2014-08-13 07:15 · Score: 1
  
  His point still stands. 240Gb is big enough for some people, but they have to be mindful of disk usage. That is wasted effort. For me, a 512Gb drive would still be a pain. 750Gb is where I would become really usable, comfortable, but 1Tb would be the point were I could function without having to really think about my disk usage.
  
  It should be trivial for the manufacturers to make 1Tb drives.
6. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Luckyo · 2014-08-13 08:23 · Score: 1
  
  It is. These drives already exist. But costs are not trivial at all, and mainstream market ignores them. They're specialist products.
7. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by eyepeepackets · 2014-08-13 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  Samsung has had 1TB drives since December of last year for msata form factor. Not sure when the 7mm cased 1TB drives were born, but they're available too. Pricing isn't too scary either.
  
  --
  Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
8. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 10:00 · Score: 0
  
  If your OS takes 512Mb then you really need to switch to something else. I fit my OS, all software and all the files I need 24/7 access to on my 512 SSD just fine and that is with a couple of 40gb VM images on it.
  QFT. Thank you for explaining so eloquently why nobody could ever need more than 512MB. Why could we not think of this convincing argument ourselves, oh how shortsighted and dumb we all are. Someone call the Pope and CERN, Lumpy is going to split super heavy particles and prove the existence of God next, right here on the internets.
9. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 11:43 · Score: 0
  
  GiB....what does the i stand for?
10. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-14 01:51 · Score: 0
  
  While we're at it we should probably start using 1000 for time. Disk drives dealing with factors of 2, time dealing with seconds/minutes/hours, sounds like an easy cop out. Why have days when we could just be using 86.4 kiloseconds?
  Captcha: mislead
11. Re:Why no 1 Tb version? by Man+Eating+Duck · 2014-08-14 10:49 · Score: 1
  
  GiB....what does the i stand for?
  It's short for Gibibyte.
  
  --
  Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
China already has this by ivanl · 2014-08-13 04:15 · Score: 1

Taobao has a 64GB SSD @ RMB200 (US$32.47) before shipping. That's 50 cents per GiB for you, with a SM2246EN Silicon Motion controller and Intel 25m IMFT NAND flash. According to Tom's review on this controller, this can hold its own against Samsung 840 EVO.
shouldn't even be a headline by apcullen · 2014-08-13 04:27 · Score: 1

newegg has a 1TB one on sale for like 390... which would be 39 cents per GB, 50 cents a GB has been the rule of thumb for SSDs for over a year now.
No thanks... by Lumpy · 2014-08-13 04:46 · Score: 1

OCZ is known to be junk that fail with a very short lifespan. Call me when a RELIABLE SSD like a Samsung or Intel, that has a proven track record hits the $0.50 per GB mark.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
1. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 07:11 · Score: 0
  
  You missed the whole "Toshiba owns OCZ" part didn't you.
  Also, not all of us ended up with bad OCZ SSDs.
2. Re:No thanks... by Luckyo · 2014-08-13 08:25 · Score: 1
  
  There's no such thing as "OCZ SSD that isn't bad in terms of reliability", because they were specifically designed to be cheap and fast. To achieve that they specifically cut down on reliability.
3. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 15:57 · Score: 0
  
  Crucial MX100 (or M550 depending on specials)
  Early results showed for their M4 higher reliability than the Intel drives. They are their own memory manufacturer, and nowadays are partnered with Intel via IMFT.
4. Re:No thanks... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-14 01:42 · Score: 0
  
  I have a 60GB Vertex 3 and 128GB Vertex 4 which have run reliably (read: without a single hiccup) for quite some time. The Vertex 3 is even used as flash cache in ESXi.
  I understand my anecdotal evidence is not the complete picture, however to say in absolute terms there's no such thing as an OCZ SSD that isn't bad in terms of reliability is a bit of an overstatement. Sandforce drives had some bad initial firmware, but not every individual SSD they ever produced is unreliable crap.
5. Re:No thanks... by Luckyo · 2014-08-15 14:31 · Score: 1
  
  You misunderstand. OCZ has (had?) an official policy of taking a controller, disabling any data safety features they thought they could get away with to squeeze a little bit of extra on benchmarks, and then cover the massive return rates with sheer numbers of sales.
  We all know how that particular form of engineering and marketing strategy turned out in the end. Bankruptcy.
  Obviously this doesn't preclude the possibility that many of the drives in the wild will work for years and years. This is simply because reliability is a matter of risk and risk being realized. Even a drive with 99% failure rate every year has a chance of working for decades. OCZ drives were in low double digits failure rate, so quite a few of them last years.
  The problem is that this doesn't eliminate the fact that they have over double the failure rate of market average over their entire lineup, and certain models had failure rates of around 1/3 of all sold during warranty.
  I can give you another freak anecdote. I still have two 120 gig seagate 7200.7s. Those drives are about fourteen years old. They spent most of their life as a system drive in what was first my gaming rig and later my backup server rig as the OS drive. They still work beautifully, both of them. But they are absolutely an exception, just like your OCZ drive. Most of their peers are dead. As are most of the peers of your drive.
Prices are fixed by commodities brokers by fustakrakich · 2014-08-13 04:49 · Score: 1

What the market will bear... remember? In these kinds of markets supply and demand don't enter into the picture.
Damn things are worth 10 cents on the dollar, if that much.

--
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Spend money on reliability and drivers by gelfling · 2014-08-13 04:51 · Score: 1

Try not to scrimp on that because you are literally killing off the entire product class by having shitty drivers and quality. No, really, you are. Half the consumers out there are getting SSD's are slower than 7200rpm SATA drives at half the reliability for 5x the cost.
3-year warranty? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 05:58 · Score: 0

Wow, a whole 3 years at a time when Samsung is shipping drives with a 10 year warranty (albeit at a higher price).
Yawn... Wake me up @ .05/GiB by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 07:57 · Score: 0

That is all.
Thanks!
Less than 50 cent is new? Whut? by Briareos · 2014-08-13 08:04 · Score: 1

My 480 GB Crucial M500 cost ~200€ a month ago - that's 41.66 cents per GB.

--
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
1. Re:Less than 50 cent is new? Whut? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-08-13 12:47 · Score: 0
  
  You and your crazy moon currency. That works out to be 55.8333 US cents.