Post
by andyb » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:14 am
I wouldnt uy one of these even at their new "lower" prices, as they are still way over what I would be prepared to pay, but this is really good progress. In 12 months time from now, I expect to be able to buy a faster 256GB drive for £150, and a 128GB drive for £85 - That I would buy.
I dont want to spend more than £100 on any drive (ideally). That figure puts me in the realm of a nice fast 1TB Samsung (hypothetically, as I already have one), a 150GB WD Velociraptor (if they ever arrive at half the cost of the current 300GB model), or a 32GB fast SSD.
What would I buy right now - the 1TB Samsung is the answer, I get a shitload of storage, and its pretty damned quick. If I had £200 to spend, I would buy 1 Samsung, and keep the other £100 until the 64GB fast SSD's are down to that value. For my usage (games) 64GB is really the minimum I could deal with, and I would love to have the performance, but as I am tight fisted (and watching the SSD prices tumble) I am not going to buy one yet. Ideally I would want 128GB or more, simply because a killer game might come out that is massive (Conan is something like 11GB).
The loser here is WD, as the price of SSD's is dropping, whilst their performance and capacity are increasing SSD's first kill is going to be the performance sector (regardless of their low power consumption). The people who want uber performance (gamers, servers, workstations) also have cash to spend, which is ideal as SSD's cost more per GB than anything else - but they also have more performance than anything else, thats their selling point.
The second market sector that SSD's will fill will be heavy duty laptop users, who really want/need the extra performance, and/or want to save some precious battery power - also SSD's can be beaten up without data loss, which appeals to many people.
Us silence enthusiasts come in third place (maybe second), as obviously SSD's are totally silent, and very very cool. We actually fill all market sectors in one go, as people who want silence also want performance, low power usage etc, but we are also a smallish market - but generally have cash and will spend it (not as much as gamers).
I am really looking forward to getting my first SSD, but I am going to be left waiting for some time until there is a product that meets all of my requirements outlined above.
Andy
