Ved årsskiftet vil 512 GB SSD-priserne falde til $50 og falde endnu mere

TrendForce's DRAMeXchange division har delt observation. TrendForce acts as a marketplace for contracting the supply of NAND memory and products based on it. The DRAMeXchange group provides fairly accurate short-term and even comparatively long-term price forecasts based on this data and considering anonymity. Fresh data and market situation assessments, as well as production plans from Samsung, SK Hynix, Intel, and Micron, give DRAMeXchange analysts grounds to make an intriguing conclusion. By the end of the current year, specialists report, the price per gigabyte of SSD with 512 GB and 1 TB capacity will drop to 10 US cents or even lower. This will set a historical low for SSD prices.

A drop in the price of 512 GB SSD to $50 or even lower will make this product the second most common after 256 GB SSD drives. Furthermore, 512 GB SSD models will replace the previously popular 128 GB models. Another associated trend is the decreasing prices of mass-market PCI Express SSDs to the level of SATA SSD costs. This phenomenon will lead to a PCIe SSD penetration rate exceeding 50%.

The use of SSDs in laptops, as noted by TrendForce, exceeded 50% back in 2018. Contract prices for 128, 256, and 512 SSDs have fallen by 50% from their peak in 2017 and are likely to dip below the cost of 10 cents per gigabyte closer to the end of this year. This encourages system builders and users to abandon 512 GB and 1 TB hard drives, which clearly bekræfter the motor manufacturer for HDDs, the Japanese company Nidec. Thus, the adaptation of SSDs in PCs will reach 60–65% in 2019.

I løbet af 2. kvartal 2019 faldt den gennemsnitlige kontraktpris på SSD'er for sjette kvartal i træk. Gennemsnitlige kontraktpriser på masseproducerede SATA SSD'er til OEM-computere faldt med 15–26 %, mens gennemsnitlige kontraktpriser på PCIe SSD'er faldt med 16–37 %. Faldet i priserne skyldes både overproduktion, et højt niveau af lagerbeholdninger samt konkurrence på markedet og et relativt svagt efterspørgsel efter lagringsenheder. De fleste producenter er gået over til at bruge 64/72-lags 3D NAND, mens Intel har begyndt at dæmpe priserne med deres 3D NAND QLC (som skriver fire bits i hver celle). I 3. kvartal forventes nye produkter fra Apple at genoplive efterspørgslen på NAND-markedet, men analytikere forventer ikke nogen prisstigning; det videre fald i priserne på NAND-hukommelse og produkter kan dog bremses en smule. Alligevel lover analytikere, at der vil være „fristende“ priser på 512 GB og 1 TB SSD'er inden årets udgang. Man må bare tro og vente lidt.

Kilde: 3dnews.ru