The Price/GB ratio for SSDs is dropping rather slowly these days

Out of curiosity of when we might see a 1 TB SSD for less than $200, I decided to compare historical (mostly launch) prices for some of the more popular SSDs over time...

Code:

Date			SSD Model		Capacity (GB)	Price	Cost/GB
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2007*			Samsung			64		$1,000 	$15.63
September 8, 2008	Intel X25-M G1		80		$595 	$7.44
March 18, 2009		Intel X25-M G1		80		$350 	$4.38
July 22, 2009		Intel X25-M G2		80		$225 	$2.81
July 22, 2009		OCZ Vertex		64		$218 	$3.41
July 22, 2009		OCZ Vertex		128		$385 	$3.01
February 1, 2010	Crucial RealSSD C300	128		$499 	$3.90
April 14, 2010		Corsair Force		120		$410 	$3.42
July 8, 2010		OCZ Vertex 2		120		$329 	$2.74
July 12, 2011		Intel 320		80		$160 	$2.00
July 12, 2011		Intel 510		120		$278 	$2.32
July 12, 2011		Samsung 470		64		$120 	$1.88
July 12, 2011		Samsung 470		128		$210 	$1.64
July 12, 2011		Crucial M4		64		$116 	$1.81
July 12, 2011		Crucial M4		120		$220 	$1.83
July 12, 2011		Vertex 3		60		$160 	$2.67
July 12, 2011		Vertex 3		120		$259 	$2.16
July 12, 2011		Vertex 3 MAX IOPS	120		$290	$2.42

* Sorry, I'm going by memory here, unlike the other data which either comes from reviews or from Newegg's current prices.

Seems like the days of 50% per year price drops ended in 2009. Heck, 2011's cheapest SSDs haven't even managed to halve the Vertex 1's $/GB ratio from 2 years ago. I guess that affordable 1 TB SSDs are much further away than I'd hoped

 

It's a bit hard comparing different brands and models.

It would be interesting to see the price point of Intel G1 160GB, G2 160GB and G3 160GB.

I've seen Kingston V+ 100 96GB with MIR go for ~$100. That's nearly $1 per GB.

 

Camelegg is a great resource for historic Newegg pricing.

I don't know how far back their database goes, and they don't keep track of rebates/shipping. When searching for items I've found it best to search for the Newegg part number, such as N82E16834131116. If you just search for description, it may not "find" older parts that are discontinued. Of course Newegg themselves may not pull up old stuff, but they keep it archived. You can find archived stuff by Googling the product description with "site:newegg.com" to pull up only results from Newegg. Hmmm, maybe it works for Camelegg too? I gotta try it.

Okay, I tried it and it works splendidly. My "test" was to search for the Corsair CX430 PSU. There was the original (now discontinued) version and the newer "V2." Searching for "corsair cx430" at both Newegg and Camelegg only pulls up the newer V2, but Googling site:newegg.com/site:camelegg.com pulls up the old one too.

Oh yeah, when looking at Camelegg pricing, you may want to click on "all" for the date range.

 

The V+ IMO is the best bang for the buck choice as of now.

 

i bought a intel g2 80gb a year ago and it cost me 230+tax, now intel 320 80gb are 155+tax

thats a pretty big difference if you ask me. not to mention the new ssds are faster

 

I was focusing mainly on Intel's and OCZ's SSDs because of their long histories and great popularity with reviewers - all 3 generations of the X25-M/320 are there. Perhaps it would've been clearer if I'd sorted the data by brand instead of by date.

Anyways, the X25-M 160GB follows the pattern - the G1 cost $1000 at launch, the G2 cost $500 (50% price drop a year later) and the G3 cost $290 and is now up to $300 (2 years later with a less-than-50% price drop).

I thought about looking at Kingston's SSDs too, but their naming scheme confuses me

Thanks for the tip

 

as long as people pay, why should they go lower? milk the cashcow as long as you can..

 

I agree prices seem to have stablized. Back last fall we all thought prices would drop when the 3rd gen intel drives and SF-2222 drives came out, but they didn't really, things are pretty much the same as last fall, maybe a bucks less. For example, last fall a 120Gb SF-1222 drive cost $190 if you got a good deal. Today the same drive can be had for $160 on a coupon. Thats only 15% less, not quite the big drop I was hoping for.

On the positive side our old drives have higher than anticipated resale value.

 

Especially if they aren't SandForce?

Agreed that the price hasn't come down much in the last 8-10 months. I was planning on holding off getting one for my laptop, but since both my personal desktop and PC at work have SSDs, the laptop drive was starting to bug me in it's lack of responsiveness I did get a nice deal on my M4 though, Newegg combo deal with Windows 7 Upgrade (Home to Pro) that meant I paid $15 less than I would have for just the drive, plus 10% coupon

Periodically you can get nice deals, but for the most part there has been little movement in prices. The "experts" were predicting a major drop by the end of this year due to gen 3, but it's not looking good. Hardly any movement in 6 months...

 

Prices are dropping slowly because we're still making improvements in speed and capacity. Just think, a $500 256gig ssd last year =! a $400 256gig ssd this year. Even though the price only dropped 100 bucks, the speeds have increased for random r/w, controllers are more reliable, and they have better power consumption ratings.

If they were flooding the market with similar spec'd drives (like most HDD's) for the last 6 months, then you would expect a larger price drop due to more efficient mass production and general wide-spread availability.