When Will SSD Have Same Price as HDD

PriceG2, Inc., a market research and consulting firm with expertise in retail SSDs, HDDs, USB flash drives, and memory cards, publish this report:

SSD and HDD Mathemathical Intercept:
When Will a SSD Have the Same Price as a HDD

The retail price for 256GB and 512GB SSDs has been dropping at a linear rate since 2010. In comparison, HDD pricing and new technology introductions have been stagnant. The HDD industry’s highest capacity in a 2.5" 2-disk configuration has been the same 1TB for the last 3+ years. If SSD pricing continued to fall at the same rate, then mathematically SSDs would match HDD pricing by mid to late 2013; however, a recent up-tick in SSD pricing, noted by the orange circle in the charts below, is expected to delay the intercept into 2014 or beyond.

256GB SSD and 250GB HDD Price History and Forecast

512GB SSD and 500GB HDD Price History and Forecast
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Details by Capacity
The logarithmic chart below shows greater detail in each capacity and price point. For the first quarter of 2013, HDD pricing dropped by about 5% overall, where SSD pricing increased up to 8% on some models. To date in 2013, it appears as if NAND flash manufacturers have opted to control pricing more strictly and have no immediate goal to replace HDD’s with a similar capacity SSD for the same price.

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Comments

We hear frequently in the industry that there is a 1:10 ratio in price in favor of HDD compared to SSD. But the figures of PriceG2 demonstrate that it's not true anymore. The ratio is only 1:8 for 500/512GB capacity and 1:4 for 250/256GB.

For higher capacities, HDD competes better than SSD. It's the opposite for lower capacities.