14 DAY TRIAL // Products based on NAND Flash memory chips continue to sell for a lot more than magnetic devices, but the gap will narrow significantly in the second half of the year, according to DRAMeXchange.
We've heard it all before, how NAND Flash chips are always poised to get cheaper and finally let solid state drives become mainstream-priced.
This latest report on the part of DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce market research firm, is the latest in the long string of such tidings.
We will not start bouncing on our feet in excitement, despite the apparently clear reason.
After all, all the other rumors to this effect ultimately proved invalid or just didn't get reflected in the happenings of the near term.
Still, it bears noting that the situation seems much more promising this time than on previous occasions.
After all, if DRAMeXchange is right, then SSDs will actually get affordable this year, in the second half.
That is to say, the price of solid state drives on a per-Gigabyte basis will fall to $1 or even lower (0.75 Euro).
Both companies and consumers have been looking forward to this, since it will finally make 128 GB the mainstream SSD capacity.
Also, ultrabooks will become cheaper, since they use SSDs exclusively, even though there are 18-inch HDDs on sale as well.
OCZ technology is one of the main memory IT players that will launch cheaper SSDs when the time comes. It will even use TLC (triple-level cell) instead of the MLC people are used to.
Meanwhile, Intel is getting ready to launch 20nm-based MLC NAND. The first models will make their appearance in the third quarter.
For those who want to put things into perspective, the current per-gigabyte price is of around $2, or more depending on manufacturer and type of chips, not to mention the size of the manufacturing processing node.