A steep rise in prices for Nand-type flash memory have created a new hurdle for the adoption of solid-state drive technology in notebooks, according to market analysis company iSuppli.
SSDs can be used to replace a notebook PC's hard disk, reducing power consumption and weight. Their adoption in notebooks had been helped by low prices for Nand-type flash memory, which makes up about 90 percent of the value of a SSD, according to iSuppli.
However, these low prices hurt memory manufacturers; they cut production last year to reflect weak market demand, but this has caused prices to rise, iSuppli said on Wednesday.
"The recent increase in Nand flash pricing has benefitted memory chip makers, but also has served as a major damper on the market for SSDs used in notebooks," Michael Yang, senior analyst for mobile and emerging memories at iSuppli, said in a statement.
Average pricing for 16GB-density Multi-Level Cell (MLC) Nand flash rose 127.8 percent from $1.80 (£1.10) in the fourth quarter of 2008 to $4.10 in the second quarter of this year, according the market researcher's figures.
While this has benefited chipmakers, it has made SSDs a less attractive option, according to Yang. "With the rise in Nand pricing, even a 32GB MLC SSD represents a major addition to the final price of a notebook PC," he said.
SSDs have been introduced in laptops from most of the main manufacturers, while hardware makers, such as Intel, Samsung and Toshiba, have also moved into the market. Intel cut its SSD prices in February, saying its production of the devices was fully up and running.
The drives have been particularly popular in small, cheap sub-notebooks, known as netbooks, particularly due to their light weight. The durability of SSDs, which do not have moving parts, has also been a factor in this, as netbooks are designed to be carried around by users.
In June, data storage manufacturer SanDisk announced it would begin tailoring certain SSDs, especially for the netbook market.
However, most netbooks currently on the market use standard hard drives, due to the relatively low cost and high capacity of such devices.
Talkback
The other issue which this story raises is energy consumption. SSDs are key to netbooks not just because of low weight but, more importantly, their low energy consumption. And that's why they're being considered - and in some cases even deployed - in the data centre.
Stick one or more one of these on your server, eg as the OS disk, which mainly reads rather than writes (slow writing is the SSD's Achilles' heel), and the machine will fly - and consume a lot less power. Over hundreds of servers, it adds up to a considerable saving in energy consumption, heat production, and refrigeration costs. And with energy consumption at the top of the agenda for data centre managers, theyr are scrutinising SSDs as one way to help mitigate spiralling energy costs - and to boost their installations' green cred too.
The memory market has always been more price-volatile than the magnetic storage media business, as this price hike proves, and it could be one reason why data centre managers start to think twice before plumping for solid state disks in a big way.