Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by Unknown on 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.

4 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Cheaper drives by Vigile · · 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 schlachter · · 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.
    2. Re:Cheaper drives by Anubis+IV · · 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.

  2. Yay! I can lose my data cheaply now! by omems · · 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.