Buyer beware: Solid-state drive prices vary--a lot

Updated at 9:40 a.m. PST with additional information about SLC-based solid-state drives.

Some solid-state drives are more equal than others--or, to put it another way, command higher prices than rival drives, despite being seemingly quite similar.

SanDisk's G3 Series of SSDs offer capacities up to 240GB

(Credit: SanDisk)

SanDisk and Toshiba offer a good lesson. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, SanDisk said it would start shipping 240GB SSDs in "mid 2009," priced at only $499. (Next to a comparable hard-disk drive, that may be a lot of money, but for a solid-state drive, it's dirt cheap.)

At the Toshiba booth, however, the story was very different. A Toshiba representative said his company's comparable 256GB SSDs are priced at $800. And this discrepancy is coming from two companies that get their flash chips from the same source: a joint-manufacturing operation in Japan.

Below are the prices Toshiba representatives were stating on the show floor versus prices that SanDisk announced.

Toshiba/SanDisk solid-state drive pricing:

• Toshiba 512GB: $1,600, SanDisk N/A
  
• Toshiba 256GB: $800, SanDisk 240GB: $499
  
• Toshiba 128GB: $400, SanDisk 120GB: $249
  
• Toshiba 64GB: $175, SanDisk 60GB: $149
  

Throw Intel into the mix, and it gets more confusing. "Introductory" pricing for Intel 160GB versions of its X25-M and X18-M Serial ATA (SATA) solid-state drive is $945 for less than 1,000 units.

All these drives are based on newly developed multilevel cell technology (which allows the larger capacities), and all suppliers claim superior performance and endurance. (Intel's stellar x25-M SSD performance has actually been validated in reviews.)

SanDisk, for instance, says its new G3 SSDs are "more than five times faster than the fastest 7,200 rpm HDDs and more than twice as fast as SSDs shipping in 2008," and provide Long-term Data Endurance (LDE) "sufficient for over 100 years of typical user usage."

So what makes for the price discrepancy? Usually, but not always, higher-price SSDs use better controllers--the secret sauce suppliers use to differentiate performance--and other tricks, like larger cache memory, to boost read and write speeds. The stated, or guaranteed, durability of the SSD is also a factor. And some SSDs use an older Parallel ATA (PATA) interface, while newer drives use a faster Serial-ATA (SATA) II interface.

"The difference in controllers and expected reliability probably explains the difference in price," says Avi Cohen, managing partner at Avian Securities, which tracks the memory chip market.

Also, in some cases, SSDs targeted at corporate enterprise customers are based on faster (but more expensive) Single-Level Cell (SLC) technology. In 2009, however, SLC-based SSDs will not typically be marketed to consumers.

Overall, with manufacturers claiming similar attributes, it can get confusing for the average consumer.

Additional comments: Note the Toshiba drives are MLC not SLC (Single-level cell) and these are prices quoted by the manufacturer.

[chuchucuhi]

At some point the marketing teams will get in there and different drives/price points will be targeted to different users e.g. home user who acesses the internet/email and stores their family photos and then the gaming market who need speed at all times and the digital enthusiast who uses it for temporary storege when working with videos, photoshop, and other large file type items who need speed and longevity this will also help them maintain profitability in a market where the margins can drop pretty quickly.

[gbelk08]

It sounds to me like a simple matter of extortion. Up until SanDisk announced its high capacity drives at CES, Toshiba was the virtually only source for Laptop manufacturers. So Toshiba took advantage of that fact and is using the money from its SSD sales to make up for its lack-luster laptop sales last quarter.

We can at least be satisfied in the fact that hopefully this gauging will end now that SanDisk and Intel are throwing their hats into the ring.

[ikramerica--2008]

It just sounds like Toshiba didn't get the memo that the "first gen pricing" was over.

Then again, if you think those prices are crazy, try the P2 card pricing at Panasonic, which RAIDS 4 normal chips into a superfast PCMCIAA card. 16GB cost me nearly $1000 last year, but it's what you have to do if you want to use your camera effectively. They are still runnning 18GB plus.

[biffhenerson]

Brooke you are way off base on the pricing. The difference in price is the due to the memory chip type. Multi-Level Cell (MLC) memory has a higher capacity and is cheap but is very slow to write when compared to the more expensive Single-Level Cell (SLC) memory. In general, SLC drives are twice the price of MLC drives. If your mainly doing reads, an MLC drive may work fine. If your doing lots of writes, go with an SLC. Its also worth noting that the new Fusion-IO drive plugs into a PCI-E X4 slot (Version 1.1 is 250MB/s x 4 = 1GB/s) rather than a SATA port (300MB/s limit) .. Fusion-IO reports a read speed is 700MB/s rather than 150MB/s for SATA SSD. Unfortunately with a MSRP near $3000, the price reflects this faster speed. http://www.fusionio.com/PDFs/Fusion%20Specsheet.pdf To date, the Intel X25-E seems to be the best performing SLC drive out there. (Retail $600)

[TravisOwens]

Buyer beware, car prices vary greatly!