14 DAY TRIAL // Price wars may not be very lucrative for IT companies, or the companies in any industry, but they are very good news for the common man, the one that actually buys the products.
That's why solid-state drives are bound to see a lot more attention on the part of consumers from now on. You see, an SSD price war is starting, according to those who claim to know how to read the signs.
Micron, one of the primary suppliers of NAND Flash chips, has begun to reduce shipments to other manufacturers. This could suggest that it intends to promote own-brand SSDs, the Crucial line, more aggressively, until shipments double on quarter.
Meanwhile, Kingston has been improving monthly sales and directly pushing against Samsung and SanDisk.
The rise of the M.2 form factor will play a big role in the future, as it offers the same benefits as 2.5-inch SATA drives, but in a much smaller physical package. And some M.2 drives can reach 1.8 GB/s transfer speed thanks to being wired via PCI Express instead of SATA.
This suggests that it won't be long before shipments of M.2 SSDs exceed those of 2.5-inch SATA. And the former can't afford to be any more expensive than the latter, so they won't get a price premium just for being new. Keep an eye on retailers' product lists and price progress charts over the next few months.