Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

SSDs Approaching Price Parity With HDDs (computerworld.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the spinning-platters-will-soon-be-like-dialup-internet dept.

Lucas123 writes: Hard disk drive per-gigabyte pricing has remained relatively stagnant over the past three years, and prices are expected to be completely flat over at least the next two, allowing SSDs to significantly close the cost gap, according to a new report. The report, from DRAMeXchange, stated that this marks the fourth straight quarter that the SSD price decline has exceeded 10%. Over the past three years, SSDs have dropped from 31 to 13 cents per gig annually. In contrast, from 2012 to 2015, per gigabyte pricing for HDDs dropped just one cent per year from 9 cents in 2012 to 6 cents this year. However, through 2017, the per-gigabyte price of HDDs is expected to remain flat: 6 cents per gigabyte. Consumer SSDs were on average were selling for 99 cents a gigabyte in 2012. From 2013 to 2015, the price dropped from 68 cents to 39 cents per gig, meaning the average 1TB SSD sells for about $390 today. Next year, SSD prices will decline to 24 cents per gig and in 2017, they're expected to drop to 17 cents per gig. That means a 1TB SSD on average would retail for $170, though online prices are often much lower than average vendor retail prices. DRAMeXchange also stated that SSDs are expected to be in 31% of new consumer laptops next year, and by 2017 they'll be in 41%.

4 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. It's time to let the HDD's go. by AbRASiON · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've seen multiple deals in the last 4 weeks of 1TB (well, 960GB) SSD's ranging near the $200 US mark.
    I'm gonna guess that $350 is the new "expensive" 1TB SSD in 2016, Q1/Q2 and then $200 becomes standard place for the cheapies by end of Q1.

    Multiple articles, quoting multiple manufacturers seem to claim we'll be seeing, VERY large SSD's in less than 24 months and within 5 years, ridiculously big SSD's (in the 80->120TB mark, iirc)

    I'd just like to see an SSD in the 10TB mark, "cheapie" or not, under $300 US within 24 months. My FreeNAs machine is spinning 6x5TB Toshiba 7200RPM disks and it's just gross. The heat, the noise, the failures. Just not fun.

    In other news, Seagate made an interesting announcement, which went under the radar. They announced a plethora of different HDD models (I'm so sick of all the sub-product dilution, but I digress) one of which though was an 8TB NON Helium, NON SMR, NON HAMR tech.
    It's plain, old, regular HDD - no read / re-write / write trickery, no obscure elements required. It's actually a bit of a shock, how long it's taken to release a larger than 6TB disk which works 'normally' The fact this announcement occured in the last month or two and how long ago it was the first 6TB HDD was announced (which didn't require fancy tech) I would have to surprisingly admit that the storage industry is indeed as speculated, moving incredibly rapidly towards ending magnetic drives, they see the writing on the wall and appear to be paying close attention to it.
    (hence stagnated HDD price reductions at the top end, also)

    FWIW: I've hated (and loved) hard disks since my first machine, with a 20MB MFM disk. I still recall the benchmarks. 18ms track to track, 80 or 90ms random reads, 640kb/s sustained (under DOS 6.22)
    I purchased the first consumer 7200RPM disk, I think it was a 9gb or 18gb (?) version of the WD Expert, $600 at the time

    I'll miss HDD's, SSD's have had some real bad stuff go on with them in the past 5 years but considering I plan to utilise them in a NAS eventually, with some redundancy, I'm looking forward to my server cupboard running a bit cooler, quieter and cheaper on electricity

    I still don't understand how 3D Nand works or why it's so much cheaper but I'm glad it exists.

    1. Re:It's time to let the HDD's go. by tibit · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Back in the days of CP/M my dad splurged on a RAM disk. A 1 MByte RAM disk, no less, with a Ni-Cd battery backup on a daughtercard. The disk was visible to the OS as 4 256kB disks. It was sheer joy to work using that thing - think instant WordStar saves and menu switches (overlays had to load from disk!). When we moved to a PC/XT clone, I re-interfaced that disk and had "instant" boot-ups, much faster than even the half-height 20MB NEC hard drive would give. I'm awaiting for the future to catch up with the past where we'll be able to get rid of mechanical drives. It's about time. I got spoiled in my youth, you see.

      Side note: This thing was a work of art, with properly engineered battery charger where each cell was individually charged using a flying capacitor kind of a set-up - the cells lasted for almost a decade.

      --
      A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
  2. editing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    > Over the past three years, SSDs have dropped from 31 to 13 cents per gig annually

    What in the fuck does this mean? Does anyone even read these or is a bot posting them?

  3. What's the MTBF? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How long do SDDs last now? That's basically all that keeps them from replacing HDDs by now.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.