SSD Drive prices
Discussion
A family member's hard drive on their laptop appears to be failing. I went to Amazon looking for a 500gb SSD. I've bought these from Amazon before for about £50-60.
I thought i'd made a mistake when the SSD's were coming up for £100+ only to learn that they've dramatically increased in price.
It's pretty ridiculous what they're charging and i'm kind of reluctant to pay those prices out of principle I paid about 50% less not long ago. Are the cheaper brands such as Integral / Lexar / Patriot reasonable? Or do I just stomach the extortionate prices and buy Crucial / Samsung / other reputable brands. Even the refurbished ones on ebay are the price the new ones were going for last year.
I thought i'd made a mistake when the SSD's were coming up for £100+ only to learn that they've dramatically increased in price.
It's pretty ridiculous what they're charging and i'm kind of reluctant to pay those prices out of principle I paid about 50% less not long ago. Are the cheaper brands such as Integral / Lexar / Patriot reasonable? Or do I just stomach the extortionate prices and buy Crucial / Samsung / other reputable brands. Even the refurbished ones on ebay are the price the new ones were going for last year.
Welcome to one of the secondary impacts of the AI bubble/boom. No doubt not made any easier either by geopolitical fun & games.
Manufacturers are heavily biasing themselves to AI associated production and so prices of all the consumer stuff is being hammered.
I have also looked recently and also don't want to pay current prices. Depending on how much you need, it may be worth looking at spinning rust, maybe with some use of usb flash drives (though the latter are more expensive too). If not bothered by using cloud, maybe use that on a short-term basis until prices hopefully adjust.
Depends on your circumstances and preferences really.
Manufacturers are heavily biasing themselves to AI associated production and so prices of all the consumer stuff is being hammered.
I have also looked recently and also don't want to pay current prices. Depending on how much you need, it may be worth looking at spinning rust, maybe with some use of usb flash drives (though the latter are more expensive too). If not bothered by using cloud, maybe use that on a short-term basis until prices hopefully adjust.
Depends on your circumstances and preferences really.
DukeDickson said:
Welcome to one of the secondary impacts of the AI bubble/boom. No doubt not made any easier either by geopolitical fun & games.
Manufacturers are heavily biasing themselves to AI associated production and so prices of all the consumer stuff is being hammered.
I have also looked recently and also don't want to pay current prices. Depending on how much you need, it may be worth looking at spinning rust, maybe with some use of usb flash drives (though the latter are more expensive too). If not bothered by using cloud, maybe use that on a short-term basis until prices hopefully adjust.
Depends on your circumstances and preferences really.
I think the hard drive in laptop is failing and would be looking to replace it. Cloud won't really be an option. I could use USB flash drive and go down the Chromebook route. Manufacturers are heavily biasing themselves to AI associated production and so prices of all the consumer stuff is being hammered.
I have also looked recently and also don't want to pay current prices. Depending on how much you need, it may be worth looking at spinning rust, maybe with some use of usb flash drives (though the latter are more expensive too). If not bothered by using cloud, maybe use that on a short-term basis until prices hopefully adjust.
Depends on your circumstances and preferences really.
Aside from buying a cheap brand, going second hand, or pinching a drive from old computer we have, I may have to entertain these prices.
g4ry13 said:
I think the hard drive in laptop is failing and would be looking to replace it. Cloud won't really be an option. I could use USB flash drive and go down the Chromebook route.
Aside from buying a cheap brand, going second hand, or pinching a drive from old computer we have, I may have to entertain these prices.
I'd look at getting some kind of back up done ASAP using anything available as a first step. I was going to ask if the rest of the laptop is worth saving Vs new, but it looks like good deals will be harder to find.Aside from buying a cheap brand, going second hand, or pinching a drive from old computer we have, I may have to entertain these prices.
We're about a year into the hiked prices and unfortunately they're not getting any better anytime soon. Now that the initial scrabble for inventory has subsided once everyone realised, prices have sort of stabilised.
There will likely be some price inflation on Amazon due to the preparation for some promotional cuts around black friday coming up soon so don't get caught on the wrong side of this.
I've got SSDs from Crucial, Sandisk, Lexar and cheap chinese Orico.
The only failures I've had after months of use have been the Crucial and Sandisk. The Crucial one was still in warranty and so were able to sort me a replacement drive with only a few test hoops to jump through on their RMA chat.
Crucial inventory will likely be circling the drain right now as the parent company elected to exit the consumer business earlier this year to chase the AI dollar.
The Lexars are ok but as with any of the cheap SSDs (Crucial included), they are built to a price and cannot sustain their max transfer speeds for long.
The Oricos are a bit slower still but have been working ok despite being transfer drives for several TB of photos.
Apologies if teaching one to suck eggs but the one thing you've got to watch out for is the TBW figure (TeraBytes Written) which the cheaper manufacturers will do their utmost to hide. As flash has limited write cycles, buying second hand and cheap may be a false economy if the drive is reaching the end of useful life.
Techpoweredup have a bit of a database on specs which can be handy for looking up these figures if they have them.
https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/
The Lexars and the cheap chinese brands like Orico have quite a low TBW relative to their size (100-200TBW) compared to Crucial / Samsung / WD who offer 300-500TBW. So cheap is ok for an OS boot disc with all valuable documents etc stored elsewhere but try and buy as large as you can so that the write cycles are spread across the flash as much as possible.
There will likely be some price inflation on Amazon due to the preparation for some promotional cuts around black friday coming up soon so don't get caught on the wrong side of this.
I've got SSDs from Crucial, Sandisk, Lexar and cheap chinese Orico.
The only failures I've had after months of use have been the Crucial and Sandisk. The Crucial one was still in warranty and so were able to sort me a replacement drive with only a few test hoops to jump through on their RMA chat.
Crucial inventory will likely be circling the drain right now as the parent company elected to exit the consumer business earlier this year to chase the AI dollar.
The Lexars are ok but as with any of the cheap SSDs (Crucial included), they are built to a price and cannot sustain their max transfer speeds for long.
The Oricos are a bit slower still but have been working ok despite being transfer drives for several TB of photos.
Apologies if teaching one to suck eggs but the one thing you've got to watch out for is the TBW figure (TeraBytes Written) which the cheaper manufacturers will do their utmost to hide. As flash has limited write cycles, buying second hand and cheap may be a false economy if the drive is reaching the end of useful life.
Techpoweredup have a bit of a database on specs which can be handy for looking up these figures if they have them.
https://www.techpowerup.com/ssd-specs/
The Lexars and the cheap chinese brands like Orico have quite a low TBW relative to their size (100-200TBW) compared to Crucial / Samsung / WD who offer 300-500TBW. So cheap is ok for an OS boot disc with all valuable documents etc stored elsewhere but try and buy as large as you can so that the write cycles are spread across the flash as much as possible.
vikingaero said:
Even memory cards have skyrocketed.
Sandisk 512Gb Micro SD £89 on Amazon. I used to buy them for £29-£36 on Amazon sales.
I was looking at some RAM I bought last year on Amazon. Cheap brand for £13. Today's price on amazon £32Sandisk 512Gb Micro SD £89 on Amazon. I used to buy them for £29-£36 on Amazon sales.
It's been an eye opening experience. I knew GPUs had gone up a lot but didn't realise it had extended to basically all components.
vikingaero said:
Even memory cards have skyrocketed.
Sandisk 512Gb Micro SD £89 on Amazon. I used to buy them for £29-£36 on Amazon sales.
yeah, SD cards have increased to the point relatively much more than the previously already expensive and more niche CF express cards - which in some respects made it easier to justify going to a CF card now vs the SD cards i was previously using for a camera.... Sandisk 512Gb Micro SD £89 on Amazon. I used to buy them for £29-£36 on Amazon sales.
Derek Smith said:
I have two dual bay HDD enclosures. I thought I'd go for another to make things tidy on my desk. It has increased in price by 20%. I get the reasons for SSD and HDD price increases, if not the degree, but enclosures? How does that come about?
They have silicon in them. Bridge chips and the like.120gb SSD are still cheap at around 20 quid on Amazon. Ideal for main OS drive and use any old HDD for bulk storage. No real benefit having massive SSDs given their current high price unless want the quietness and modern HDDs aren't that noisy it's the fans that are the biggest noise problem.
Virtual PAH said:
120gb SSD are still cheap at around 20 quid on Amazon. Ideal for main OS drive and use any old HDD for bulk storage. No real benefit having massive SSDs given their current high price unless want the quietness and modern HDDs aren't that noisy it's the fans that are the biggest noise problem.
This is no good in a laptop though. Can't remember the last non-specialist laptop I saw that had a 2nd 2.5" drive slot.Virtual PAH said:
120gb SSD are still cheap at around 20 quid on Amazon. Ideal for main OS drive and use any old HDD for bulk storage. No real benefit having massive SSDs given their current high price unless want the quietness and modern HDDs aren't that noisy it's the fans that are the biggest noise problem.
Thanks, I think I'm leaning towards a 240gb smaller brand for about £35.I'm staggered by the cost of crucial, Kingston etc.
The HD is only really needed for the OS. I don't think they even store any data on the computer so anything beyond is really wasted.
SteBrown91 said:
This is no good in a laptop though. Can't remember the last non-specialist laptop I saw that had a 2nd 2.5" drive slot.
Interesting point, given my latest saga. Are there actually any current laptops with e secondary HDD slot, as that might save me a chunk of money with the replacement laptop?I'd be surprised if most consumer grade laptops weren't either single slot NVME only or soldered storage only given the current price shenanigans.
Most of the space within a laptop shell tends to be taken up by a battery, the motherboard tends to be tiny so the quest for thin and light will reduce any opportunities to have multiple drives when USB C is available for most consumers.
Most of the space within a laptop shell tends to be taken up by a battery, the motherboard tends to be tiny so the quest for thin and light will reduce any opportunities to have multiple drives when USB C is available for most consumers.
For laptops an external drive for mass storage may work depending on what's being stored and how often it's used. At home I tend to use my laptop as a static PC anyway, with it plugged into a USB-C dock for external monitor, mouse, and other devices, so easy to add storage into that hub.
For internal storage it depends on the laptop, some offer a second M.2 SSD slot but still have the price issue for larger capacity options. Easier to segregate OS drive from data drive though so can more easily upgrade the data drive when prices come down.
For internal storage it depends on the laptop, some offer a second M.2 SSD slot but still have the price issue for larger capacity options. Easier to segregate OS drive from data drive though so can more easily upgrade the data drive when prices come down.
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