SSD Prices Continue To Fall in 2012
Solid-state drives have historically been expensive. With many PC users often complaining that they were far too costly and not easily affordable for the average computer fanatic. Recently SSD prices have seen a huge drop in cost. With many mainstream devices now costing under a dollar-per-gig, which makes them extremely competitive and attractive to the mass market.
From the beginning of this year, solid-state drive prices have begun a downward trend. With a number being considerably cheaper than they were just 3 months ago.
The range of SSD’s from OCZ have seen the biggest price drops, with the OCZ Octane 256GB seeing a massive 55% cut in it’s consumer cost. Others including the Vertex 3 120GB and the Octane 128GB have also seen price drops above the 50% mark.
Here is a comprehensive list of nearly 40 SSDs and their price drop in the third quarter of the year 2012.
- OCZ Octane 256GB – 55%
- OCZ Vertex 3 120GB – 53%
- OCZ Octane 128GB – 50%
- OCZ Vertex 4 128GB – 42%
- OCZ Vertex 3 240GB – 37%
- OCZ Agility 3 240GB – 35%
- Intel 330 Series 120GB – 31%
- Samsung 830 Series 64GB – 31%
- OCZ Agility 4 256GB – 31%
- OCZ Agility 4 128GB – 30%
- Intel 520 Series 240GB – 28%
- Samsung 830 Series 256GB – 27%
- Intel 520 Series 120GB – 26%
- OCZ Agility 3 120GB – 24%
- OCZ Vertex 4 64GB – 21%
- OCZ Agility 4 64GB – 19%
- Intel 330 Series 60GB – 18%
- Samsung 830 Series 128GB – 18%
- OCZ Vertex 4 256GB – 17%
- Crucial m4 128GB – 15%
- Corsair Force Series 3 120GB – 13%
- Corsair Force Series 3 60GB – 13%
- Corsair Force Series 3 240GB – 13%
- Intel 320 Series 300GB – 12%
- Crucial m4 64GB – 6%
- Corsair Force Series GT 60GB – 6%
- Crucial m4 256GB – 5%
- Corsair Force Series GT 120GB – 4%
- Intel 320 Series 40GB – 3%
- OCZ Agility 3 60GB – 3%
- Intel 320 Series 120GB – 2%
- OCZ Vertex 3 60GB – 0%
As you can see, the majority of drives dropped in price by at least 12%, with only a few costing a single-digit percentage less than they did before. We can see that the biggest range of discounts came from OCZ, where a number of its SSDs are literally now half price. With many more seeing reductions anywhere in between the ranges of 17-42%.
Corsair and Crucial have seen the smallest reductions in terms of percentage. Whilst both Samsung and Intel SSDs have seen fairly large price drops, though not at the same level as OCZ.
Prices fall further and further
From the beginning of the third quarter on July 1, OCZ drives continued to fall. Even though we see a number of spikes in price, the overall trend is one of a downward nature. The SSD market faces a huge amount of competition, unlike that CPU market where Intel has had a fair amount of success in holding their prices fairly steady. With a price war currently on-going between the manufacturers of SandForce-based drives, the 520 series has seen its cost get lower and lower.
Possibly the biggest indication that SSD prices are continuing to get more affordable is the cost per GB. A large number of SSD’s now cost less than a dollar per gig, with the majority of the 40 mentioned above all coming in at less, or close too the one dollar mark. The cheapest is the OCZ Agility 4 256GB at $0.67 per gig, and the most expensive at $2.25 per gig.
Tags: ssd driveThe article has been provided by Alex, the computer hardware expert. He’s been writing for NovaTech, and suggests to see more SSD hard drives at Novatech.co.uk
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