External 8 TB SSDs before internal?

[Bwaze]

What's with the latest push for ultra expensive external 8 TB SSDs, before we even got internal consumer 8 TB nVME SSDs?

Besides usual SSD makers there's also bunch of no name makers with seemingly legit products, and apparently tons of scammer products even on legit shops that offer 8 TB, but are much smaller drives, disguised as 8 TB!

Why do all these drives look and are marketed as "lifestyle" products, aimed at wealthy content creators that want to move their content from their ultra expensive laptop to ultra expensive tablet?

There's almost no reviews on usual PC tech sites, there are some on more general tech sites?

There's:


Samsung Portable SSD T5 EVO USB 3.2 Gen 1 for $1060

SanDisk - 8TB Desk Drive USB Type-C Desktop External SSD for $680

Glyph 8TB Atom PRO Portable Thunderbolt 3 NVMe SSD for $1400

VectoTech 8TB External SSD USB-C Portable Solid State Drive (USB 3.1 Gen 2) for $620

Teamgroup M200 8TB (eventually)

...

 

[Dristun]

aimed at wealthy content creators

You answered your question. There's money to be made there and that crowd generally doesn't balk at the price, as opposed to PC enthusiasts. Besides, that market is much bigger than DIY PC.

 

[DarkDreams]

Why do you think there are no internal 8 TB NVME drives? I can find:

• TeamGroup MP44 8TB
• Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 8TB
• ADATA XPG Gammix S70 Blade 8TB
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB

Also all very expensive (over 100€/TB), but I feel that is to be expected at the high end of capacity.

 

[kapone32]

You answered your question. There's money to be made there and that crowd generally doesn't balk at the price, as opposed to PC enthusiasts. Besides, that market is much bigger than DIY PC.

One anecdote we could use is the Steam Deck (Handhelds). I am sure most owners have more Games than they can install on the internal storage on the Deck. There has been an 8TB SSD available from Kingston (I have one) that is actually more expensive than when I got mine about 5 years ago. There are 870 QVO 8 TB (Have been) but they seem to be the NAND that Samsung does not want as that drive has the most negative reviews I have ever seen. Apparently the endurance is very poor on those but you can get 8 TB for about $450 US. If M2 is your wheel house, Corsair will set you back about $1000 US on Newegg as well.

Then you have those $30 adapters that have HDMI, USB and USB C and the laptop market is suddenly in play too. As well as MINI PCs.

 

[Bwaze]

Why do you think there are no internal 8 TB NVME drives? I can find:

• TeamGroup MP44 8TB
• Corsair Force Series MP600 Pro 8TB
• ADATA XPG Gammix S70 Blade 8TB
• Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus 8TB

Also all very expensive (over 100€/TB), but I feel that is to be expected at the high end of capacity.

Yes, there are 8 TB nVME drives, but with the very high prices and very limited availability I wouldn't call them "consumer drives". There are also almost no reviews of the drives, and if there are, it's usually explained they tested the lower capacity from the lineup - as if the drives are too expensive to be sent to reviewers? Perhaps they are, but how come reviewers always get their hands on high end GPUs, costing twice as much?

And we're still talking about 8 TB as some almost unreachable cutting edge technology - more than 4 years after the release of Samsung SSD 870 QVO 8TB.

 

[GerKNG]

SSD Prices are just as high because you have no other choice.
nobody can convince me that half a fingernail worth of silicon on a strip of chewing gum sized PCB costs more than 5€ per TB in production.

 

[kapone32]

SSD Prices are just as high because you have no other choice.
nobody can convince me that half a fingernail worth of silicon on a strip of chewing gum sized PCB costs more than 5€ per TB in production.

The slap in the face is boards support even longer drives (22110) and now well provisioned boards have thermal pads on both the bottom and top so having NAND chips on the bottom is fine. It is the stupid narrative that did not have the community demand that we get Higher NAND Capacity drives. The penetration has been about the same but instead of paying less per TB like HDD, NAND flash has us convinced that the reverse is true.

 

[Bwaze]

I'm wondering if there's some kind of cartel agreement with HDD drive makers, to divide the consumer space between small SSD drives and larger HDD disks?

There have been some news several times in the past years on how we're on the brink of SSD drive capacity expansion, latest in the past month about WD with titles like "SSDs are about to become massive, thanks to WD", but when you read the article, it's all about some undefined future...

SSDs are about to become massive, thanks to WD