Falling Flash price could boost SSD uptake

SSDs will only replace hard drives if the price is right

The price of Nand Flash memory components could fall as low as $1 (66p) per gigabyte by the end of this year, renewing interest in solid state drive (SSD) technology as a replacement for standard hard drives, according to iSuppli.

The research firm said that the price of Flash memory silicon has been inflated over the past two years because of strong demand and limited production capacity.

This fact has prevented widespread adoption in high-volume business and consumer PCs, where hard disks with their greater storage capacities continue to hold sway.

Now, iSuppli predicts that the price for triple-level cell Flash, which stores three bits per memory cell, will decline to $1 by the end of 2010.

"With Nand pricing having returned to per-gigabyte pricing levels not seen in two years, there's likely to be a lot of new buzz created for the solid state storage market at the end of 2010," said Michael Yang, senior analyst for memory and storage at iSuppli.

This could lead to renewed interest in using SSD technology to replace standard hard drives. SSDs have some advantages over rotating disks, such as faster read speeds, greater resilience against shock damage, and more compact form factors.

Yang, however, warned that hard drive technology has continued to gain ground in terms of rising capacities and falling prices, and that Flash costs may need to fall even further to compete.

Nand Flash memory will have to decline to 40 cents by 2012, he said, at which point a 100GB SSD would cost as little as $50 (£32).