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SSD price decline expected to flatten out say IHS analysts

by Mark Tyson on 24 July 2014, 13:00

Tags: Samsung (005935.KS), SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK), PC

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Market analysis predicts that prices of solid-state drives, which have been declining steeply in recent years, will start to flatten next year. This is due to a foreseen shortage of SSDs, especially those targeted at ultrathin laptops and hybrids, reports PC World. However, despite the slowing downward price momentum, the cost-per-gigabyte is expected to decline moderately as the storage capacity of drives continues to increase each year, storage analyst at IHS, Fang Zhang, commented.

Most laptops which boast a thin and light chassis use SSDs which are built-in closely to the motherboard, contrary to the SSDs in mainstream laptops which can be plugged into bays and are upgradeable without much difficulty. With storage making up around 8 to 9 per cent of the cost of building portable devices, Zhang said that the SSD price drops have contributed significantly to declining laptop prices over recent times. However this welcome trend may not help reduce Ultrabook or hybrid prices in 2015, due to shortages.

Another reason ultrathin SSD price declines will be stemmed next year could be due to the fact that NAND flash makers are contributing more factory capacity to manufacturing smartphone and tablet storage. That could indeed be more lucrative for them – just consider Apple's iPad storage differential pricing for example, adding as much as £100 to the consumer price for 16GB of extra built-in flash storage. Therefore, we may see OEMs resort to adjusting other features to shrink the cost of building ultrathin devices, such as lowering screen resolutions, reducing DRAM capacity or removing webcams.

M.2 format SSD storage

The price of SSD storage for ultrathin devices is expected to average $111 for 197GB this year, up to 264GB in 2015. It is forecasted to drop to $109 for 340GB in 2016 and then plummet to $93 for 405GB in 2017 and $79 for 465GB in 2018, Zhang said. Manufacturers including Samsung and Sandisk have plans to shift more factory capacity to make SSDs for ultrathin notebooks. This is said to be the main contributing factor to the expected SSD price drop in 2016.



HEXUS Forums :: 9 Comments

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Therefore, we may see OEMs resort to adjusting other features to shrink the cost of building ultrathin devices, such as lowering screen resolutions, reducing DRAM capacity or removing webcams.
I'd be quite happy to have the “selfie cam” removed from a tablet … although I'd be less impressed with a low-res display or less memory. Not that bothered with the “ultrathin” category either for phones, tablets or laptops. Would much prefer a thicker device with a bit more battery (and/or ports).

What I'm waiting for though is the affordable 1TB SSD, although I notice that Scan have the 1TB Samsung 840 EVO for a marvellous £316, so another £50ish off gets it into “must buy” territory for me.
£250 for a decent 1TB SSD and I would order it in a snap too!

I have a 256Gb too and it's becoming a struggle to not buy a 512Gb but I'm trying to hold out for a good 1TB deal!
There is always at least one component that is not as cheap as it once was if your building a PC.
At the moment its RAM which is still more expensive than it once was.
Slash the price of RAM and reduce the cost of a copy of Windows (say around £30) and i think the “build your own” market would have a resurgance.
Yeah, reduce the price of OS to 0 by installing Linux. :)
SineWave
Yeah, reduce the price of OS to 0 by installing Linux. :)

The cost of having to relearn a new OS would cost far more to a lot of people.