Kingston: Solid State Drives Will Finally Supplant Hard Drives in Second Half of 2012

[beer]

After peering into its crystal ball, the market psychics at Kingston firmly believe that by this time next year, you're likely to choose a solid state drive over a mechanical hard drive. NAND flash memory prices are coming down, and while it's been slow going, overall pricing for SSDs will finally reach the point where they're able to attract would-be HDD buyers.

Nathan Su, flash memory sales director at Kingston, says the average price of 1GB of NAND flash memory will probably fall to around $1, according to DigiTimes. Su readily admits that the high cost of flash has hampered SSD adoption, but he believes the transition to 19nm and more advanced manufacturing processes will prove a game changer in 2012.

Also working in SSD's favor is the shortage of HDDs caused by recent flooding in Thailand. In some cases, HDD prices have shot up three-fold since the flooding took place, and some industry insiders don't expect the market to stabilize until the end of next year.

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[DKT27]

Kingston: SSDs could replace HDDs by end of 2012

The maker of one of the most popular solid state drives, Kingston, predicts that prices for SSDs will finally cause the average consumer to pick them before regular hard drives by the end of 2012.

Solid state drives have always been the best pick for PC owners compared to regular hard drives. SSDs, which use flash memory to store data, tend to be faster, have no moving parts to replace or wear out and use less energy than regular hard drives. The one difference that hurts SSDs has always been the cost. Purchasing a 128 GB SSD could get most people several 2 TB regular hard drives.

Now MaximumPC.com has a bold prediction from Kingston, which creates some of the most popular SSDs for PC owners. According to Kingston's flash memory sales director Nathan Su, he believes that the cost for flash memory will decrease down to just $1 per GB by the end of 2012. If that indeed happens, that should allow for prices of SDDs to go down as well. Other factors such as better manufacturing of SDDs and the transition down to the transition to the 19nm process should also contribute to lower prices.

One unexpected factor for hard drive prices has been the recent floods in Thailand which have caused regular mechanical hard drive factories to shut down or curtail production. As we have reported before, this has caused a shortage in hard drive as well as a price jump for the remaining drives that are still for sale. The prices for some hard drives may not go back down to pre-flood levels until the end of 2012.

View: Original Article

[beer]

Really hoping to see those 256GB and larger SSDs come down in price next year :cheers:

[DKT27]

I really have no idea how 1GB per $1 flash prices is gonna make SSDs replace HDD. It's certainly a good point made about the falling prices that will help people buy SSDs more, but the price is still a bit high to actually "replace HDDs".

[Snowdrop]

Considering how some people (such as I), still pile TB HDD's onto my desktop... I'll buy a SSD for a boot drive, but not as replacements >.>

[myidisbb]

so at a $1 my 2 TB would cost me $2000. and since i have 5 in docking station alone for this laptop that would cost me dearly. NO Thank You. there is no reason that SDDs are not 20 TB and costing under $500. until then kiss my ass

[beer]

Thanking for pointing out that this article doesn't reflect-well for those of us with TB data drives. If the projections holds to be true, I think the $1/GB should be most attractive to those shopping in the 60GB~256GB range. :beerhat:

[x3r0]

SSD will more appropriate for notebook users, and perhaps some desktop users looking for faster system... Due to nature of chip (has limit of read-write), I don't think it would be wise to replace magnetic disk storage (with can store files longer) with SSD...

[mara-]

SSD will more appropriate for notebook users, and perhaps some desktop users looking for faster system... Due to nature of chip (has limit of read-write), I don't think it would be wise to replace magnetic disk storage (with can store files longer) with SSD...

You might be very wrong about that. For example, I ordered myself Crucial m4 128GB and on their page they claim expected life of 5 years in which I write every day 40GB. I don't think I'm going to write that much data every day so I can expect 10 years if not more. Second, SSD only has limit of write cycles. So, theoretically, you can't loose any data. You won't be able to write, but you can move your data to new drive.

Cheers ;)

[0veR]

I bought PATRIOT 240 GB (600 MBps) SSD for 450€ and its so fast it boot os for 10s :D

[DKT27]

Thanking for pointing out that this article doesn't reflect-well for those of us with TB data drives. If the projections holds to be true, I think the $1/GB should be most attractive to those shopping in the 60GB~256GB range. :beerhat:

I believe 500GB to 1TB would have become a standard before the prices went up. :)

You might be very wrong about that. For example, I ordered myself Crucial m4 128GB and on their page they claim expected life of 5 years in which I write every day 40GB. I don't think I'm going to write that much data every day so I can expect 10 years if not more. Second, SSD only has limit of write cycles. So, theoretically, you can't loose any data. You won't be able to write, but you can move your data to new drive.

Cheers ;)

Some valuable info there. ^_^

Thing is, from what I've read, there was a time when the cycles on flash drives was very less. But throughout the times, things have changed. The limit exists, but the line has gone up.

[beer]

SSD will more appropriate for notebook users, and perhaps some desktop users looking for faster system... Due to nature of chip (has limit of read-write), I don't think it would be wise to replace magnetic disk storage (with can store files longer) with SSD...

mara- is right on the money when he said the SSDs will take a long time and lots of data to wear out. Here is an Intel SSD review (formula and calculation method included) that talks about it and quote:

If you don't want to crunch through the math, Intel estimates that the 80GB X25-M will last for five years with "much greater than" 100GB of write-erase per day. That's a relatively long time for much more data than most folks are likely to write or erase on a daily basis.

Another Intel SSD Reliability Briefing in July 2011, Validating the Reliability of Intel® Solid-State Drives:

The second-generation SSDs we deployed in our mobile business PCs resulted in an 87 percent reduction in the annualized failure rate compared to the HDDs we used in our mobile business PCs in 2007.

I also want to suggest that SSDs aren't just for high-performance users. Replacing a 5400rpm HDD in a low-end system with an SSD will totally transform the system responsiveness of that machine, and once you have used it would be very difficult to go back to an HDD. Right now, the question should be: "Which SSD controller Do I Want To Invest In?" :think:

[beer]

You might be very wrong about that. For example, I ordered myself Crucial m4 128GB and on their page they claim expected life of 5 years in which I write every day 40GB. I don't think I'm going to write that much data every day so I can expect 10 years if not more. Second, SSD only has limit of write cycles. So, theoretically, you can't loose any data. You won't be able to write, but you can move your data to new drive.

Cheers ;)

I also bought a Crucial M4 128GB not too long ago... and It is awesomely fast ! :omg: :cheers:

[mara-]

You might be very wrong about that. For example, I ordered myself Crucial m4 128GB and on their page they claim expected life of 5 years in which I write every day 40GB. I don't think I'm going to write that much data every day so I can expect 10 years if not more. Second, SSD only has limit of write cycles. So, theoretically, you can't loose any data. You won't be able to write, but you can move your data to new drive.

Cheers ;)

I also bought a Crucial M4 128GB not too long ago... and It is awesomely fast ! :omg: :cheers:

I should get it in few days and I'll see. I choose this drive mainly because I see very positive feedback on reliability. It's not using SandyBridge Sandforce controller, but I do care more about it working long and fine. I read that there is no SandyBridge Sandforce drive that has high reliability. And my friend will bring it to me from USA, so I can't risk non working drive from factory, like it's case with OCZ.

Cheers ;)

[beer]

I should get it in few days and I'll see. I choose this drive mainly because I see very positive feedback on reliability. It's not using SandyBridge controller, but I do care more about it working long and fine. I read that there is no SandyBridge drive that has high reliability. And my friend will bring it to me from USA, so I can't risk non working drive from factory, like it's case with OCZ.

Cheers ;)

I was in the same boat as you and I think that Crucial (and Intel) are two very fine choice for SSDs right now. Forgive me for correcting you, when you said SandyBridge you actually meant Sandforce right? In terms of Sandforce, I think people who bought OCZ SSDs were the pioneer beta testers for their Sandforce firmware and even today Sandforce SSDs among other big manufacturers like Corsair still suffer from stability issues with the firmware.

One of the first things I did after getting the drive was update the firmware to 0009(highly recommended--speed boost and minor bug patch). If your friend is good with computers maybe you can ask him to update it for you so you can make sure everything goes well before he leaves the US. Also, Crucial forums has a lot of good information if you need help with any SSD issues or you can pm me :P

Good luck and have fun with your SSD :cheers:

[mara-]

Yes, Sandforce. You're correct, SandyBridge = Intel CPU. Thanks for correcting me, no need to apologizing. :D Well, my friend is actually she, and she is not so good with computers. And yes, I agree that Crucial and Intel are way to go. Intel is overpriced in my opinion, so Crucial is golden middle. And it was such a headache to find a good drive, there are so many things to consider when buying SSD, and as they make new models, consumers will be more confused.

Cheers ;)