SSDs growing in popularity, dropping in price

Solid state disks are taking over for hard disk drives as demand grows and price falls. A report from DRAMeXchange projects that SSDs will be in about 25 percent of new laptops this year, rising to 31 percent in 2016 and 41 percent in 2017. As interest for more durable form of memory grows, production is keeping up with demand, pushing prices lower. This year, SSDs cost about 39 cents per gigabyte, down from about 68 cents per gig in 2013. By 2017, that price is expected to drop to about 17 cents per gig, making SSDs just 11 cents more expensive per gig than HDDs. When added up, the price difference between HDDs and SSDs is still significant to many consumers. A 1TB SSD would cost $170 in 2017 vs $60 for an HDD of equal capacity. Still, SSDs are known for better durability and more ideal for mobile computing.

Competition in flash memory is heating up. In October, Western Digital announced it is acquiring SanDisk for $19 billion, effectively buying its way into the flash memory market. Big players in the NAND flash space such as Samsung, Toshiba, Intel and others will maintain aggressive pricing strategies in early 2016, the DRAMeXchange report said according to Computerworld. As memory companies grapple for market share, computer manufacturers and sellers have an opportunity to make the most of the situation. SSDs are increasingly popular thanks to slim laptops and hybrids such as the MacBook Air and Surface Pro lines. Sellers of similar products holding off on the SSD boost because of the expense might find this a great time to make the upgrade.

See a comparison table of selected solid state disk suppliers on GlobalSources.com