Is it that easy to manufacture SSD?

In hard disk drive, only large enterprise company can manufacture disk drive (e.g. seagate, western digital, toshiba, hitachi). These companies spend millions and years on R&D, brand image, etc to make a product.

Now in SSD world, it seems that many unknown companies are rapidly able to manufacture SSD. There are many SSD brands in the market, I don't remember the exact brand, but for sure it doesn't represent strong brand (emphase, owc, apex, apox, whatever).

So what's the deal with it? Are they like tier-4, tier-5 companies? If so how do they make sure that their quality is on a par with tier-1 companies like Intel, Samsung?

Their price is not that good either, only slightly cheaper than brand like Intel/Samsung. My concern is it is just like marketing strategy in China & Asia - where less good products are sold at the price very similar to tier-1 brand's pricing (e.g. intel/samsung) to give impression to customers that their products have same quality if not better.

Not that I plan to buy their products nor to bash them; this is purely for discussions only to share.

 

Well, in HDD, the technology is in areal density primarily. Fit as many bits on a platter as possible. It's just that it's hard for Joe Shmo to compete with the big guns.

SSD's are a fairly new commodity in the consumer market. Many companies have developed flash based products before, but the tech is more in the controller. With SSD's, any Joe Company can take NAND on a board, and use an existing controller and throw it in a case. As the product matures I'm sure you'll see fewer and fewer companies selling as a few companies "monopolize" the market.

Same with pretty much any new tech product. Seems everyone wants to sell it, but over time, only a select few can grind a worthwhile profit in the long run.

 

In general yes. For example SSD manuf do not need the highly clean rooms that are required by HDD assembly. The only hard part of SSD is the firmware. You can buy NANDs and Controllers easily.


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The grunt work is being done by the companies that design and produce the NAND chips and controllers. Else is just assembly and firmware.