SourceHard-disk drive vendors point to the higher price of solid-state drives as a reason to keep on buying hard drives, but as Bob Dylan sang, "The Times They Are a -Changin'." The advent of 3D NAND has become a game-changer for the storage industry by increasing SSD capacity and dropping SSD prices.
By packing 32 or 64 times the capacity per die, 3D NAND will allow SSDs to increase capacity well beyond hard drive sizes. SanDisk, for example, plans 8 TB drives this year, and 16 TB drives in 2016. At the same time, vendors across the flash industry are able to back off two process node levels and obtain excellent die yields.
A Guy
Yeah, earlier today I saw someone mention a 500 GB SSD for $160 on a sale of some type. First price I've seen where the capacity in GB was more than the triple the dollar price. I might become interested if 1 TB SSDs get down to $160. Otherwise, no.
But the reliability of SSDs has been questioned.
When SSDs are not that solid
Around 120GB SSD seems a good size for me (installed programs, some data and efficient imaging). Maybe I'll consider them disposable items provided I have recent system images and the price drops even further.
I haven't seen any indication that it is happening here in Australia.
I'm still waiting for the 50% price drop that was trumpeted a few months ago.
I don't understand why people are so concerned about SSDs. My Samsung 840 Pro has been running pretty much 24/7 for about 2 1/2 years without any problems. SSDLife projects its life to be another 11 years (granted, it's no guarantee but it does indicate how good it is). I also have two Samsung 840 EVOs in my note books and they are doing just fine (granted, they do get light usage).
I've said this before and I will say it again; all drives, be they HDD, SSD, flash, whatever, will eventually fail. The only way to ensure the safety of your data is to have a good backup scheme in place. The recent report of the Samsung 850 PROs having issues with data loss were from a commercial server using them in a situation they were not designed for. Windows systems were not affected. The recent brouhaha over SSDs losing data while setting on a shelf turned out to have been exaggerated.
Consumer reviews of SSDs have been just as good, often better, as those for HDDs. Eschewing SSDs because of some questionable reports of problems with them is like not buying a car for a commuter or a grocery getter because of reports some of them had their engines fail after they had been used for drag racing or were used for pulling oversized trailers.
I'm usually slow to adopt new technology, especially if it isn't cost effective for me or the present technology is meeting my needs. Still, I will not hesitate to use SSDs in my machines. They have been well worth the money for me (and the prices have been plummeting lately). I'm looking forward to when it will be cost effective for me to nothing but SSDs, including for mass storage.
I personally have not had an ssd fail in the 5+ years that I have been using them (currently have 10 or so in use) and welcome the price free fall. I'd love to see the day where ssds become completely mainstream and totally supplant the hdd. That's not good for hdd manufacturers but it's good for consumers.
Hmm, looks like I have to peruse the online discount stores daily looking for these imminent drops. I have noticed a bit of change in SSD size per buck, but not much in USB 3.0 sticks. They still seem to be trying to unload USB 2.0 and really slow USB 3.0 sticks on the unsuspecting customer. I have to hit Winkey Plus to keep checking the fine print in the item descriptions. :)
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