Can SSD prices get pounded any lower?

These days, watching heavyweight boxers in the ring is like watching children eyeing up chocolate bars. Almost nothing happens for ages, then a tiny bit of action and it’s all over. Back in the day, when Ali, Foreman, Norton, Frazier and co ruled the world – the action started when the bell rang and the punches only stopped when someone was being carted to hospital. KitGuru dons a towel round the neck and gets ringside for Overclockers’ attack on the poor SSD price in the blue corner.

We won’t go through all of the latest SSD price drop stories so far in detail, but anyone who reads KitGuru daily will have noticed a serious tumbling of prices. While all the early action was concentrated on the 60-120GB drives, now it seems the heavyweights are getting a pounding of their own.

It now seems that Overclockers slowness to react to the early exchanges was actually a ‘rope a dope’ strategy in action.

What’s the giveaway ‘tell’ before the right hook lands?

Probably this monster: 240GB, 3rd generation SSD from OCZ – originally launched at £378 – now available from Overclockers.co.uk at just £139 inc vat.

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There are two key ways for the price of something like an SSD to fall in any kind of substantial way:-

1) Updated process: Which means that with the same number of wafers/chips, you can now achieve a much higher capacity. As the memory makers move through the 20s (Samsung/Micron etc) and on toward 19nm (Toshiba) and below, we will see price fall further – the only question is when

2) Increased overall production: Getting factories to produce more. With Elpida's wobble, that was unlikely, but we're now seeing a definite chance that Micron will have a deal in place with the Japanese giant by mid-August. That would give the Crucial/Lexar brand-holder a big incentive to ramp up production to win market share in all memory sectors by the end of the year – ready for next year's predicted boom in system shipments

KitGuru says: With the heavyweight resellers standing toe-to-toe and no one looking to back down, the price cuts have made SSD a very attractive prospect for everyone. To see a >60% price cut like this, you would need to go back to the days when Pentium 4 and Athlon ruled the world. For now, another major drop, like the series we have just reported, is unlikely – but we will do a follow up on the 480GB drives in a few days.

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