Is 25nm NAND that much worse than 34nm NAND? They better half the SSD price!

[GundamF91]

I'm almost ready to get an SSD, and was looking forward to some nice performing SSD using the new 25nm NAND, but now I'm reading that 25nm is less capable than 34nm ones. But why isn't the price reflecting this? Things have remained largely for past 4 months or so.

For one thing, switching to the smaller 25nm chips meant using half as many chips, which could half the data pathways as well (that's what happened to OCZ). Also I heard with 25nm the usable drive capacity went down, now from 55GB to 50GB. Lastly, the smaller size also supposedly shorten the write endurance "lifespan" of the 25nm NAND.

Yet with all the "advancement" that 25nm this brings us, I don't see much of a price drop in terms of GB/dollar. When will we see cost-benefit be aligned again?

 

[jiffylube1024]

From what I've heard the 25nm slower/worse issue has to do with OCZ's Sandforce drives (exclusively?). It has to do with just the bait and switch in Vertex 2 drives (and possibly Agility 2).

 

[frostedflakes]

Part of the issue is that 25nm NAND isn't much cheaper for SSD manufacturers than 3Xnm. I read an article probably a month ago that claimed at the time 25nm was only about 10-15% cheaper than 3Xnm NAND. As production of 25nm NAND is ramped up, though, prices should go down.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Its compressed data writes that OCZ fucks up and gets cut in half with 25nm. I sent mine back and they gave me a new one that doesnt shave off GBs after format but speeds are still slower.

 

[pjkenned]

Talked to a finance guy for one of the major NAND manufacturers. He said new process is seeing about a 30% reduction in cost given current yields. That doesn't include things like the PCB, housing, and controller so asking for a 50% reduction in price is probably unwarranted.

 

[corkyg]

Production cost is not necessarily total cost. That has to include a share of development costs and G&A costs. When all that is looked at, market data is applied and MSRP is arrived at.

 

[flamenko]

Production costs are a sure fire reason that prices stay high. Even after production costs have been accounted for, prices will remain high because the consumer is buying ssds by the million. I would not expect to see any reduction whatsoever in pricing and, in fact, would only believe we will only see increase with new controllers and speeds.