When are the SSDs gonna come down in price?

[Michael Meio]

Controllers affect the speed, not the cost.
Controllers are dirt cheap, mostly I see listed prices in the under 10$ range, although very recently I saw a claim that one controller costs as high as 30$. The NAND chips are very very expensive, profit margins are very low for SSD assemblers (understandable considering how all they contribute is a fake sense of competition), where the vast majority of the money goes to pay for the very expensive NAND chips.

Thanks for clearing this one out for us all.

This concept was not 100% clear for me, hence why I did it wrong.

The NAND chips are expensive but there are other types of flash memory technologies being explored and there is where the controllers play a big part. As soon as other controllers handle cheaper ways of flash storing, faster we will see a price drop in SSD.

Let's make it clear for all readers to see:
SSD is not a technology per se.. it's the definition of a non-mechanical drive (no moving parts). The fact that today they have expensive NAND and controllers like SandForce is a transition IMO. This is why I believe (and hope you agree) in new technologies derived from the controller itself that are key for taking advantage of already existing and way cheaper memory chips.

 

[jhansman]

You can get a Crucial M4 64GB for about $100 now; that seems a good price for a SATA III boot drive that simply smokes any rotational device available, at least for read times.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

Yeah, I just bought a 64GB M4 for $99.99, and a 120GB for $178. The Kingston drives are already under $1/GB.

 

[onethreehill]

As in like half of the prices we see advertised today? They are currently outrageously expensive. Select one for a laptop you are considering buying and this notebook might almost double in price.

I don't know but prices are decreasing over the years
Prices of Intel SSDs
X25-M Gen 1 - 80GB $345,160GB $600
X25-M Gen 2 - 80GB $225,160GB $440.
SSD 320 - 80GB $159, 160GB $289

 

[ChippyUK]

I don't know... but i use an SSD at work and I can't tell the freakin difference despite people constantly saying its so much better.

Systems are very similar except one has a 128GB Samsung SSD and the other a 1TB Samsung F3 drive... you know what... chrome opens instantly on both. Hell almost everything on both computers do. I imagine the SSD would make loading times in SC2 quicker but who cares about that.

Chrome is a very small app therefore it's like opening a 3mb file on a HD vs SSD (even an 80% increase would be unnoticeable).

If you do most of your work on the network/internet then you're not going to see any performance gains.

Perhaps it was either a mistake, a way to make your systems more reliable (HD failures are the highest driver of computer repairs in my company) or simply for others who use intensive HD thrashing applications.

 

[Capt Caveman]

This is a pretty hot deal - http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2187168

Ordered my first SSD.

 

[Old Hippie]

Right after this thread dies?