Least Possible price for SSD.

[ksec]

While Nodes improvement brings double the capacity per NAND chip and hence NAND chip price per GB are dropping every year.

There should be a minimum price it can reach. Assuming Controller price, circuit broad, and Material of NAND price are constant.

 

[nanaki333]

as long as people are still buying them at current $/gb, they're not going to change very much.

 

[996GT2]

SSD Prices haven't changed drastically in the last few years (going from $3/Gbyte for a good SSD to ~$2/Gbyte today).

I doubt prices will drop a lot within the foreseeable future. The minimum you can expect to pay for a brand-new, well-performing SSD (and by that I don't mean a crappy JMicron drive) is about $1.50/Gbyte on sale.

 

[Zap]

Current Jmicron drives are not crappy. They are merely mediocre. I'd use one over a HDD any day.

 

[Weenoman]

as long as people are still buying them at current $/gb, they're not going to change very much.

So you're saying that if intel could come out tomorrow with a 50 dollar cheaper SSD, they wouldn't make a killing and outperform all their competitors and make their shareholders extremely happy?

:hmm:

:thumbsup:

 

[TemjinGold]

Given the size and scope of Intel's business, they wouldn't do any of that by releasing a 50 dollar cheaper SSD tomorrow.

 

[jiffylube1024]

So you're saying that if intel could come out tomorrow with a 50 dollar cheaper SSD, they wouldn't make a killing and outperform all their competitors and make their shareholders extremely happy?

:hmm:

:thumbsup:

Probably not, actually, because one of the companies that Intel would be undercutting is themselves, they'd be destroying the profit margins from all of their higher end parts, and would flood the SSD market with cheap SSD's rather than lining their pockets with profits!

If Intel could reduce costs of SSD production by $50 (let's say, on a 120GB drive, so a ~42 cent reduction in production cost per GB), then that alone would make their shareholders happy - think about it, an extra $50 profit per SSD!!!

They'd probably start by having their products priced either the same as they are now or a little bit cheaper to give them a competitive advantage (if necessary) and pocket the difference. These things are designed to hit specific pricepoints, so if they can hit $150, $200, $250, etc. they are happy. Intel, like any company, is not going to pass all of the savings of production on to the consumer!

 

[Tom]

Any silicon product costs almost nothing to make. Sell enough to recoup development costs and pay for the manufacturing stuff and you can sell em very cheap. Much cheaper than hard drives, for example.

 

[Phynaz]

Any silicon product costs almost nothing to make. Sell enough to recoup development costs and pay for the manufacturing stuff and you can sell em very cheap. Much cheaper than hard drives, for example.

So you are saying the material costs for an SSD are lower than the costs for a hard drive?

Hate to tell you, but you are very wrong on this one.

 

[Drsignguy]

Current Jmicron drives are not crappy. They are merely mediocre. I'd use one over a HDD any day.

I agree. I would also mention that Micro Center's SSD (sandforce 1200 controller) isn't all that bad either. Just put one in my laptop and it is so much snappier. The reason I put the MC SSD in my lappy is that its a Pentium M 1.73Ghz and didn't want to pay a premium for it. $99 bucks for 64GB and it made a big difference in performance. Just makes me want to use it more often now.

 

[Tom]

So you are saying the material costs for an SSD are lower than the costs for a hard drive?

Hate to tell you, but you are very wrong on this one.

The question is about the future cost, not today's cost.

SSDs are just silicon and circuit boards. If they are ever widely adopted they'll get very cheap. Probably just be chips on a MB.

 

[stevech]

The question is about the future cost, not today's cost.

SSDs are just silicon and circuit boards. If they are ever widely adopted they'll get very cheap. Probably just be chips on a MB.

Probably a lot less costly to test SSDs.

 

[nusyo]

Probably not, actually, because one of the companies that Intel would be undercutting is themselves, they'd be destroying the profit margins from all of their higher end parts, and would flood the SSD market with cheap SSD's rather than lining their pockets with profits!

If Intel could reduce costs of SSD production by $50 (let's say, on a 120GB drive, so a ~42 cent reduction in production cost per GB), then that alone would make their shareholders happy - think about it, an extra $50 profit per SSD!!!

They'd probably start by having their products priced either the same as they are now or a little bit cheaper to give them a competitive advantage (if necessary) and pocket the difference. These things are designed to hit specific pricepoints, so if they can hit $150, $200, $250, etc. they are happy. Intel, like any company, is not going to pass all of the savings of production on to the consumer!

I agree, Intel won't flood the market with cheap ssd (cheap as in $) no matter what's the cost to make them.

However if the ssd prices would be the same as hdd, wouldn't everybody buy them?
what's best ? selling 10 ssd with a profit margin of $100 or selling 1,000,000 with a $50 or $20 profit margin

probably the best example will be china's economy which grew at almost a constant 10% each year for the past 30 years

 

[Ben90]

Once there is a surplus of flash fabs, I can see prices under $50 in today's dollars. Just think of how cheap DDR2 used to be.