SSDs Are Cheaper Than Ever, Hit the Magic 10 Cents Per Gigabyte Threshold

[dmartin]

It may be quite difficult to find bargains when it comes to DDR4 system memory or high-end graphics cards these days, but at least SSDs are more affordable now to help bandage that wound. This price drop of solid state storage has been happening throughout this year, and some units have reached a cost of 10 cents per gigabyte, a milestone difficult to have imagined a couple of years ago. The 2 TB variant of the Crucial MX500 SSD, for example, can be found now at $209, and those interested may want to check out our review of the 1 TB version before committing to a purchase.

This is great news already, but there is even better news coming as that cost will reportedly continue to drop. NAND flash could drop to $0.08 per gigabyte in 2019 according to some analysts, and some alternatives such as QLC drives from Samsung could push that trend even further. The traditional HDD market is also getting more inexpensive and better bang-for-your-buck, with a 2017 report from BackBlaze showed for example how cost per gigabyte was approaching $0.02 per gigabyte a year ago on some units. As always, price prediction reports tend to come out with the US market as a case study, but our own global TechPowerUp team is appreciating having more SSDs on deck for files and programs alike.



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[Ubersonic]

Problem is, QLC drives may be cheap but that doesn't factor in the cost of the barge pole you need to even think about touching them

 

[TheLaughingMan]

If this holds that would mean the spinning drives have officially lost their cost advantage over SSDs. The only thing left is capacity.

 

[bonehead123]

'Bout.. Friggin.... Time.......

Die spinners, die

Does anyone have a chart that shows how fast the capacity of SSD's has grown in the past few years ?

 

[silentbogo]

If this holds that would mean the spinning drives have officially lost their cost advantage over SSDs. The only thing left is capacity.

Even that gets obsolete over time. I've noticed on my own example that my storage habits change over time. Back in 2005 I had 2.5TB of storage and it was not enough, in 2008-2009 I was up to 4TB RAID, and now I get by just fine with a 128GB NVME and 512GB SATA SSDs. All I have actually stored are my Steam games, family photos and work documents (latter is also duplicated to GDrive, work NAS and two flash drives). Most of my entertainment is streamed, and my internet connection allows it (with a lo-o-ot of bandwidth to spare even at 4K).
The only thing I wanted to add to my upcoming rig is 1TB of SSD storage, cause new games are getting ridiculous : FO4 is nearing 90GB, Shadow of War is ~110GB.... Give it a couple of years, and half-assed AAA games will get as fat as quarter of a TB or more.

 

[kastriot]

Cheap is 2 cent for 1GB because i bought 2 seagate 2TB for 80 euros new packaged so that's about 2 cent per GB now beat that!

 

[spectatorx]

Still too expensive and what is even more important, there is still no way to restore lost or corrupted data from ssd when data accidentally removed or drive just failed in form of logical or physical error. I'm skipping ssds and waiting for next generation of storage drives which will provide both: speed and data safety.

 

[SIGSEGV]

US market only? have you considered the market for APAC and EMEA?

 

[moproblems99]

Still too expensive and what is even more important, there is still no way to restore lost or corrupted data from ssd when data accidentally removed or drive just failed in form of logical or physical error. I'm skipping ssds and waiting for next generation of storage drives which will provide both: speed and data safety.

You'll be waiting for a while because you aren't getting data safety in next gen. No such thing as data safety with a single device and in a single location.

 

[alexander brett]

Still too expensive and what is even more important, there is still no way to restore lost or corrupted data from ssd when data accidentally removed or drive just failed in form of logical or physical error. I'm skipping ssds and waiting for next generation of storage drives which will provide both: speed and data safety.

As has already been said right here and millions of times before, you have no data safety on ANY single device. Never in the history of digital or analog media. If you don't have 3 copies of your data/media you will lose it or some part of it. Most likely exactly the part you actually need. Sure you can argue over details, and you can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on data retrieval. Or you can snapshot, clone and backup and not lose your job. ;-)

 

[Vayra86]

If this holds that would mean the spinning drives have officially lost their cost advantage over SSDs. The only thing left is capacity.

By 2023. Read that graph

In addition, consider that this graph does not factor in the inevitable virus, flood, man bumping foot on pavement, and of course shutting down fabs due to high demand.

 

[Readlight]

Thats nothing new when everyone try to lower production price then 3rd get mor.

 

[bug]

Man, it seems like yesterday I was so glad I found my 1TB MX300 for ~$200. At those prices I can finally kick the last mechanical HDD out of my system!

 

[spectatorx]

As has already been said right here and millions of times before, you have no data safety on ANY single device. Never in the history of digital or analog media. If you don't have 3 copies of your data/media you will lose it or some part of it. Most likely exactly the part you actually need. Sure you can argue over details, and you can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on data retrieval. Or you can snapshot, clone and backup and not lose your job. ;-)

I didn't put it in precise enough words. What i mean i expect from drive what hard drives offer: option to recover data in case of failure. HDDs have it, SSDs because of how they work, how they were designed to work, they do not, i expect future drives to have what we need.

 

[bug]

I didn't put it in precise enough words. What i mean i expect from drive what hard drives offer: option to recover data in case of failure. HDDs have it, SSDs because of how they work, how they were designed to work, they do not, i expect future drives to have what we need.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. SSDs, by design, go into read-only mode when they run out of r/w cycles.
The only problem here would be mounting a r/o drive with a file system that does things like try to journalize or update access times. Because that would fail on a SSD in that state.
HDDs on the other hand... if sectors go bad, they go bad, the data there is gone. And if all sectors are ok, but the drive fails because of a mechanical problem, good luck fixing that without at least a trip to a specialized service.

 

[John Naylor]

Until I can actually see a real world productivity benefit, I don't see us changing storage purchasing decisions.

Benchmark scores - who cares ? We don't make a living running benchmarks. Gaming ... after launching the game, the PC is ready for me before I am ready for it (removing dongle from headset storage cubby, closing cubby, plugging in dongle, donning head phones, loading discords, loading web page data pages.

Boot time - 15.6 seconds on expensive "Pro" SSD versus 16.5 seconds for SSHD. The 0.9 seconds over 2 -4 weeks time is not an impact, especially when after rebooting, I'm listening to phone messages and returning calls, grabbing a caw-fee, checking my inbox and won't do squat for 15 - 20 minutes.

Backups and Large File Transfers - Done at night, or when leaving desk...if not, it's a background task ... otherwise something usually done once in PC lifetime (new build)

Other than missing out on bragging rights w/ benchmark scores, there's no real world gain for faster storage in office or home ... 2 TB SSHD costs me less than 5 cents a MB.

Now there was a day I'd paid $1000 for a 1 GB SCSI HD and it was certainly worth the investment. But AutoCAD (2D and 3D) is no longer bound by the storage speeds of those days. If I was video editing, animation or rendering, I'd have nothing else by SSDs as with that usage. Over last 8 going on 9 years, have put a SSD + SSHD in every one of our builds .... In that period have had 0 SSHD failures... in one case the lappie died, SSHD was pulled and is used in a HD dock for offsite storage. Over same period, (4) SSDs have failed... but none in the last 5, maybe 5.5 years, so today's units clearly have better longevity. One of those, replaced under warranty, failed a second time and that purchase accounts for 2 of the failures.

I love that prices are getting cheaper, even as it is "the cheap stuff" here... But until I see 2 TB units approaching $100, not exactly a ROI in making this move. At $150, tho it might be attractive if only to be able to use a smaller case.

 

[sixor]

Even that gets obsolete over time. I've noticed on my own example that my storage habits change over time. Back in 2005 I had 2.5TB of storage and it was not enough, in 2008-2009 I was up to 4TB RAID, and now I get by just fine with a 128GB NVME and 512GB SATA SSDs. All I have actually stored are my Steam games, family photos and work documents (latter is also duplicated to GDrive, work NAS and two flash drives). Most of my entertainment is streamed, and my internet connection allows it (with a lo-o-ot of bandwidth to spare even at 4K).
The only thing I wanted to add to my upcoming rig is 1TB of SSD storage, cause new games are getting ridiculous : FO4 is nearing 90GB, Shadow of War is ~110GB.... Give it a couple of years, and half-assed AAA games will get as fat as quarter of a TB or more.

GEARS OF WAR 4, FORZA 3 AND 7

LOL, i remember my crucial m4 64gb in 2011, 110$

some months back, crucial mx500 256gb 80$

 

[Captain_Tom]

"It may be quite difficult to find bargains when it comes to DDR4 system memory or high-end graphics cards these days"

LOL no it isn't. Vega 64 is $399, and there are piles of dirt cheap Polaris and Pascal cards on eBay. DDR4 is more than it should be, but I honestly give only a couple months for it to come down to Earth finally.

 

[R0H1T]

Problem is, QLC drives may be cheap but that doesn't factor in the cost of the barge pole you need to even think about touching them

Not any worse than the HDDs they're supposed to replace, in fact you'll hear more horror stories from spinners than SSD's in general.
If the prices go down further, & we get similarly lower prices in the rest of the world, many will simply dump HDD in a heart beat including me.

 

[cucker tarlson]

Until I can actually see a real world productivity benefit, I don't see us changing storage purchasing decisions.

Benchmark scores - who cares ? We don't make a living running benchmarks. Gaming ... after launching the game, the PC is ready for me before I am ready for it (removing dongle from headset storage cubby, closing cubby, plugging in dongle, donning head phones, loading discords, loading web page data pages.

Boot time - 15.6 seconds on expensive "Pro" SSD versus 16.5 seconds for SSHD. The 0.9 seconds over 2 -4 weeks time is not an impact, especially when after rebooting, I'm listening to phone messages and returning calls, grabbing a caw-fee, checking my inbox and won't do squat for 15 - 20 minutes.

Backups and Large File Transfers - Done at night, or when leaving desk...if not, it's a background task ... otherwise something usually done once in PC lifetime (new build)

Other than missing out on bragging rights w/ benchmark scores, there's no real world gain for faster storage in office or home ... 2 TB SSHD costs me less than 5 cents a MB.

Now there was a day I'd paid $1000 for a 1 GB SCSI HD and it was certainly worth the investment. But AutoCAD (2D and 3D) is no longer bound by the storage speeds of those days. If I was video editing, animation or rendering, I'd have nothing else by SSDs as with that usage. Over last 8 going on 9 years, have put a SSD + SSHD in every one of our builds .... In that period have had 0 SSHD failures... in one case the lappie died, SSHD was pulled and is used in a HD dock for offsite storage. Over same period, (4) SSDs have failed... but none in the last 5, maybe 5.5 years, so today's units clearly have better longevity. One of those, replaced under warranty, failed a second time and that purchase accounts for 2 of the failures.

I love that prices are getting cheaper, even as it is "the cheap stuff" here... But until I see 2 TB units approaching $100, not exactly a ROI in making this move. At $150, tho it might be attractive if only to be able to use a smaller case.

sshd speeds are good thanks to the ssds inside of them.
secondly,how did you get these numbers ? they are complete horsesheit. sshds are still slow compared to ssd.

installation
https://www.purepc.pl/pamieci_masow...e_firecuda_compute_hybryda_ssd_i_hdd?page=0,9
https://www.purepc.pl/pamieci_masow...e_firecuda_compute_hybryda_ssd_i_hdd?page=0,8

loading times
https://www.purepc.pl/pamieci_masow..._firecuda_compute_hybryda_ssd_i_hdd?page=0,10

you can find games and software where they can match a ssd in loading times lke this one

https://www.purepc.pl/pamieci_masow..._firecuda_compute_hybryda_ssd_i_hdd?page=0,11

but that's not a rule,often times sshd just doesn't perform the way an ssd does,even a crappy 120gb 2d tlc one.they will do good in reviews,but they're set up way to show they're ideal performance. in normal usage that 8gb buffer is laughable. you can buy a ssd and just use intel smart response to allocate up to 64gb. Why would anyone purchase a sshd when you can get a ssd and a hdd is beyone me. isn't it better to control what you want on the fast drive and what you want on the slow drive yourself without resorting to that puny 8gb on the sshd doing it automatically ?

 

[silentbogo]

I didn't put it in precise enough words. What i mean i expect from drive what hard drives offer: option to recover data in case of failure. HDDs have it, SSDs because of how they work, how they were designed to work, they do not, i expect future drives to have what we need.

SSD data recovery is different, but it's definitely not impossible. You can swap the controller, you can replace passive components, you can dump raw data from non-failed nand and re-assemble data from raw blocks etc. etc. etc.
Your fear of SSDs is definitely groundless. HDDs may be more convenient to recover, but SSDs fail significantly less often.

 

[Venger]

The SSD prices are suppose to continue to fall into 2019.

 

[spectatorx]

SSD data recovery is different, but it's definitely not impossible. You can swap the controller, you can replace passive components, you can dump raw data from non-failed nand and re-assemble data from raw blocks etc. etc. etc.
Your fear of SSDs is definitely groundless. HDDs may be more convenient to recover, but SSDs fail significantly less often.

That's exactly what i mean. Finally someone who understands me.
Yes, i may sound overestimating data recovery from ssd but definitely it is not as easy and as successful as it is from hdds. For example infamous intel's ssd 8MB bug, method to recover data from drives with that issue was finalized in 2017 and it still doesn't guarantee recovering data. Said problem plagued intel's drives in 2013 so it makes 4 years of waiting for method which will not give you 100% warranty to recover data from failed drive.

IMO, in every single test of every single ssd should be mention of that in summary in cons, people have to become aware of with speed they buy also something what is not safe device to store data on it, at all.

 

[Deleted member 67555]

I like this news but was willing to pay $.70 a gb over mechanical because mechanical drives suck salty sweaty donkey balls....Ain't nobody got time for all that.

 

[moproblems99]

That's exactly what i mean. Finally someone who understands me.
Yes, i may sound overestimating data recovery from ssd but definitely it is not as easy and as successful as it is from hdds. For example infamous intel's ssd 8MB bug, method to recover data from drives with that issue was finalized in 2017 and it still doesn't guarantee recovering data. Said problem plagued intel's drives in 2013 so it makes 4 years of waiting for method which will not give you 100% warranty to recover data from failed drive.

IMO, in every single test of every single ssd should be mention of that in summary in cons, people have to become aware of with speed they buy also something what is not safe device to store data on it, at all.

Good lord, back the freakin data up and be done with it.

I like this news but was willing to pay $.70 a gb over mechanical because mechanical drives suck salty sweaty donkey balls....Ain't nobody got time for all that.

I can continue to sell them to you at $.70/GB if you choose. Let me know when you need to purchase.