We've seen a sharp drop in solid state drive pricing over the past year, to the point where you can grab a 1TB SSD for around $100, or a little more if going for a faster NVMe model. It's been great seeing prices finally come down, and at least one market research firm believes even cheaper pricing is right around the corner.
DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, issued a report highlighting steady yields of 64-layer 3D NAND flash memory production, which are the actual chips commonly found in most SSDs. According to the report, NAND flash memory manufacturers produced more chips than they could sell due to a variety of factors—a looming trade war between the US and China, a shortage of Intel CPUs, and lower-than-expected sales of Apple's newest iPhone devices.
"Looking ahead to the first half of 2019, NAND flash manufacturers have tried to slow down their production capacity expansion, but the seasonal headwinds and high inventory levels would only intensify oversupply concerns in the market. Contract prices of NAND flash products in 1Q19 are expected to drop further by around 10 percent," DRAMeXchange said.
If the research firm is correct, the oversupply of NAND flash memory chips won't just affect mobile devices, but also SSDs, which it predicts will also see a drop in price by nearly 10 percent next year. This will occur "despite the increasing SSD adoption rate in the PC market," the company says.
It's hard to complain about SSD pricing at the moment, but we're happy to see SSDs becoming even more affordable. As it stands, it's no longer necessary to go with a puny SSD for the main drive on a modest budget.
