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Analysts Say We Are Headed For a Flash Memory Price Crash (techspot.com)
With the industry currently facing a very large surplus of NAND flash memory, analysts suggest we could see very significant price drops in SSD and even DRAM in 2019. They say to expect a price correction over the next several quarters. Techspot reports: Jim Handy, a market analyst with Objective Analysis, predicts that the flash memory industry is headed for a "downward pricing correction" in 2019, if not a full-on collapse. If prices crash, we could be looking at NAND prices as low as eight cents per gigabyte. At last week's Flash Memory Summit, Handy said that even without a full collapse, the downturn will be the biggest "price correction in the history of semiconductor products."
The Register reports that currently, NAND flash prices are hovering around $0.30/GB. A 66-percent dip would bring SSDs into a more competitive range to HDDs causing cannibalization leading to a downturn for some manufacturers like Seagate and Western Digital. Manufacturers could allocate more NAND to producing DRAM, but this, in turn, would result in an oversupply in that sector. If Handy's predictions pan out, the industry could be in for a 25-percent price reduction in NAND and a 75-percent drop for nearline/high-cap SSD's. This could result in significant stock valuation shifts for some manufacturers.
The Register reports that currently, NAND flash prices are hovering around $0.30/GB. A 66-percent dip would bring SSDs into a more competitive range to HDDs causing cannibalization leading to a downturn for some manufacturers like Seagate and Western Digital. Manufacturers could allocate more NAND to producing DRAM, but this, in turn, would result in an oversupply in that sector. If Handy's predictions pan out, the industry could be in for a 25-percent price reduction in NAND and a 75-percent drop for nearline/high-cap SSD's. This could result in significant stock valuation shifts for some manufacturers.
Are you saying the collusion is over?
Fabs mostly can't switch over to DRAM production. They aren’t technologically similar. And there are only 3 DRAM producers versus 6+ flash producers. Barriers to entry for competitive DRAM production for new producers are astronomically high.
... that's not what TFA says (I know, reading the articles? On Slashdot?). Planar flash and DRAM are similar enough to be switched easily, about as easily as CPU fabs switching from one design to another on the same node. 3D flash is another story, but there's still several planar flash fabs running, which (being the least cost-effective flash fabs) would almost certainly switch to DRAM if the price for flash crashes.
Do you always post nonsense to the internet without 10 seconds of research? Hard Drive Cost per GB Over Time
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I disagree with TFA on that. The 3 DRAM makers have shown a very rational approach to increasing DRAM production — they try to prevent oversupply and keep margins up. They don’t have an incentive to change, and even if they did, the new generations of DRAMs are technologically very challenging to make, and DRAM bit density isn't growing very fast.
SK Hynix just announced they are spending $3B on a new fab:
https://www.anandtech.com/show...
If NAND is in vast oversupply and it's reasonable to simply convert NAND production to DRAM, then why build new fabs? Answer: because the combination of those two things isn't true enough to make that decision economical.
The problem with Flash storage is not only price. It's also data retention time. The times where unpowered flash was holding data for 10 or more years are long gone.
How long can a current SSD hold the data without power? I can take an old HD from my stack, power it up after 2 or more years and still read the data from it. Can you do the same with a current SSD?
Or could it mean that if you don't power up your computer for a month or two will already have you lose data?
Yes alongside the crimes regarding 10gb nics... I'm sorry is 10+ yrs of this technology commonplace in thousands of datacenter systems and massive transistor density increases still not enough for 10gb nics to be the slowest you see... period. Can someone explain to me why the $300 ultra high end cpu's of a few years ago are now 4x+ that price for the same tier? Must be all these improvements in density and reduction in manufacturing cost.
"The 3 DRAM makers have shown a very rational approach to increasing DRAM production — they try to prevent oversupply and keep margins up."
Which is good for nobody... including them. Producing and selling twice the product for the same profit is neutral for the manufacturer and twice as good for absolutely everyone else (except their competitor).