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Laptop SSD Capacity To Remain Flat As NAND Flash Dearth Causes Prices To Rise (computerworld.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the steady-as-we-go dept.

Lucas123 writes from a report via Computerworld: Laptop manufacturers aren't likely to offer higher capacity standard SSDs in their machines this year as a shortage of NAND flash is pushing prices higher this year. At the same time, nearly half of all laptops shipped this year will have SSDs versus HDDs, according to a new report from DRAMeXchange. The contract prices for multi-level cell (MLC) SSDs supplied to the PC manufacturing industry for those laptops are projected to go up by 12% to 16% compared with the final quarter of 2016; prices of triple-level cell (TLC) SSDs are expected to rise by 10% to 16% sequentially. "The tight NAND flash supply and sharp price hikes for SSDs will likely discourage PC-[manufacturers] from raising storage capacity," said Alan Chen, a senior research manager of DRAMeXchange. "Therefore, the storage specifications for mainstream PC [...] SSDs are expected to remain in the 128GB and 256GB [range]."

2 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. [tinfoil]Artificial scarcity ![/tinfoil] by thegreatbob · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is it more reasonable to assume that the markets have legitimately drained the supply, or that the whole industry is keeping a lid on it? SSDs seem to have become nigh ubiquitous on the convertible laptop/tablets, and an extremely common upgrade for even low-end laptops... Also, older news on this (i see things dating from Q4'16) offered the suggestion that relief might be coming by now. https://www.theregister.co.uk/...

    At any rate, let's just hope that as many manufacturers as possible survive as long as possible to avoid establishing one of them as the WD of NAND. Hopefully things will stay competitive for a while longer.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  2. A general question for the community by Pollux · · Score: 3, Interesting

    When I first started to buy SSD's for my school, I tried to do some research and quickly became confused about the differences between TLC, MLC, and SLC. I found various sites like this one that gave a good overview, but I didn't find very many that really analyzed the performance differences.

    I settled on the Kingston V300 series of disks, an MLC unit that seemed to get decent reviews. It's been treating us well, but I always wonder whether the MLC was worth the extra money over the UV400, a slightly cheaper TLC variant.

    Has anyone ever used both MLC and TLC drives and care to comment about whether the differences in performance justify the cost?