SSDs are getting cheaper

Let's hope the same thing happens to DRAM

| Source: Various Retailers Author: Mark Campbell

SSDs are getting cheaper

Back in February, I was in the market for an SSD, a moderately sized unit that would be able to cope with an OS a collection of software and a few games, settling on a 500GB model for just under £120. This pricing was typical for the time, though thankfully this is starting to change.



In recent years, NAND demand has skyrocketed, thanks to growing demand for solid state storage in data centers, increasing demand and storage requirements for mobile phones and increased use of SSDs in the boutique PC market. This increased demand brought with it increased pricing, much like the DRAM market, though thankfully this boost in demand came alongside the introduction fo 3D NAND into the market, offsetting normal supply/demand driven price increases.



This situation meant that over the past few years, SSD pricing has remained mostly stagnant, creeping slowly upward while DRAM pricing skyrocketed, though now it seems that the supply constraints within the NAND market are starting to disappear, which in turn means that SSD pricing is beginning to lower.











In the UK, it is now fairly easy to find a 480-512GB SATA SSD for under £100, something that wasn't possible a few months ago, with both Crucial's 480GB BX300 and Kingston Technology's 480GB A400 now costing £80 on Amazon. That is a full 33% price decrease over what I spent on a similarly sized SSD four months ago.



Looking at the pricing history for Kingston's 480GB A400, we know that the drive was available for £120 at most retailers on March 1st, creeping down to £100 in mid-April and now to £80 at both Amazon and Ebuyer, revealing a fundamental change in the SSD market.



In time, we hope that these prices decreased will apply to more SSDs across a broader range of manufacturers, ushering in a new era of affordable SSDs for PC builders. Hopefully, this change will also see the price of higher-end NVMe storage decrease.



You can join the discussion on SSDs getting cheaper on the OC3D Forums.

1 - Let's hope the same thing happens to DRAM «Prev 1 Next»

Most Recent Comments