FAQs about SSDs

ssd

How much does an SSD drive cost?

That’s a very common question and one we will try to answer here. The answer: it depends on the size and model you choose.

For small drives, such as 128GB, prices can start at $0.25 per GB which is $30 for a 128GB drive. Larger models with more storage may be available up to 512GB which costs around $0.145 per GB or $74 for that capacity.

Prices continue to drop as technology advances and competition heats up in this fast-growing market segment. The performance of SSD drives continues to improve as well although not all SSDs will perform equally due to software optimizations that vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Manufacturers often promote their drive’s specs, such as read/write speeds or IOPS (input-output operations per second), but keep in mind that these benchmarks usually only apply to one specific model and may not be true across the entire product line so always do your research.

Why are SSDs expensive?

In a word, performance and technology. The biggest SSDs start at around 500GB and go up from there. While the price per GB of a larger drive is less than a smaller one, it’s still going to be out of reach for many consumers until the cost comes down.

Additionally, SSDs have higher prices because they have fewer drives in their product lines. In other words, if you can get 100 1TB hard drives for $100 each but only 10 250GB SSDs for $200 each, then your cost will go up accordingly.

Price isn’t everything though; performance is often the most important factor when comparing different options for storage devices. One option that does compare favorably with SSDs on price/performance ratio is Solid State Hybrid Drives.

The number of SSDs that are sold will increase exponentially as the production becomes more cost-effective, but they still won’t be able to compete with traditional hard drives on price/GB.

This means that average consumers will never be able to afford them. The average consumer can buy a 2TB hard drive for $100 and get roughly twice as much space as a 256GB SSD, which sells for around $150 or more (depends on brand and model).

However, there is hope: Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSs) like Seagate’s Momentus XT are already on the market, and more will be released in the near future. These drives include 8-16GB of NAND Flash memory, which can speed up boot times and application launching while decreasing power consumption. They cost roughly $10-$20 more than traditional hard drives of the same storage capacity, but justify that premium by providing much faster performance in most cases (e.g., 2x faster here ). As this technology becomes cheaper to implement, it should eventually become available as a standard-issue on most laptops across the board.

SSDs are still an attractive option for many users due to their higher read/write speeds; they offer 5-7x faster random reads, and 3-4x faster random writes. This makes them ideal for large file transfers and tasks that require heavy multitasking. That said, they’re still quite expensive in comparison to traditional hard drives; they cost about $10-$20 more than a comparably-sized traditional HDD (e.g., 1 TB 7200 RPM drive ). However, this doesn’t stop users from upgrading PCs.

Why are SSDs in demand?

SSDs continue to gain popularity for a variety of reasons:

  • They offer better performance
  • Being lighter and smaller than traditional hard drives, they reduce laptop weight and thickness; SSDs also lack mechanical components, which make them more resistant to physical damage such as bumps and drops (e.g., the majority of laptops use 1.8″ or 2.5″ HDDs vs 3.5″ HDDs found in desktop computers)
  • As prices drop, SSDs will become increasingly widespread across consumer devices; e.g., hybrid HDD/SSD systems should become increasingly popular so users can take advantage of the high speeds offered by SSDs while retaining high storage capacities
  • Although SSDs remain more expensive than traditional HDDs, the price gap is narrowing as demand for SSDs rises and production costs fall; it is expected that the price gap between them will continue to narrow as time passes.
  • As of 2015, most laptops come with a standard HDD/SSD hybrid configuration (e.g., 4GB HDD + 8GB NAND flash) but all new ultrabooks are likely to include pure SSD configurations by default, thanks in part to Intel’s Ultrabook specifications requiring this from manufacturers
  • Solid State Drives and hard disk drives store information on spinning magnetic disks or platters and access it through movable read/write heads with an electromagnetic interface.

What are the cheapest SSDs in the market?

  1. Crucial
  2. WD
  3. Kingston
Author:
I am a computer engineer holding a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, complemented by a Master's in Business Administration from University of Strathclyde, Scotland. I currently work as a Senior IT Consultant in Melbourne, Australia. With over 15 years of...