Half of Notebooks Expected to Have SSDs

Megalith

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In an effort to woo PC OEMS into adopting 64/72-layer 3D SSDs, suppliers have been cutting prices. The effect of that should be more obvious this year, as over 50% of all notebooks produced are expected to include some sort of SSD. Pricing will remain low due to weaker demand and oversupply.

Contract prices for mainstream SSDs for PC OEMs are expected to decline by 3 to 5 percent in the first quarter in the SATA-SSD sector and 4 to 6 percent in the PCIe-SSD sector, according to DRAMeXchange, a unit of TrendForce. By contrast, SSD prices rose throughout 2017, the firm said.
 
That's all? When SSD's started getting popular a while back I though by now they would be umbiquitios even in cheap stuff. Oh well, we'll get there eventually.

True story: Four years ago my dad asked me to recommend a new laptop (had to have a 17" screen) so I found him a good deal on a nice HP. I also recommended he get an SSD that I would swap for the hard drive so it would be a lot faster as I told him. So he did. I went over to house did the swap. Everything good he was happy. A few months ago he asked me about getting an SSD for the laptop (my hand smacks my forehead).
 
I'd have an SSD in my laptop (is that different than "notebook"?) but the honest truth is I basically got the cheapest thing that wasn't a completely PoS just for portability not speed/power. At the time me putting a SSD into it would increase the cost anywhere from 30-50%
 
Never been graced with using a SSD, best I had was a hybrid drive with a giant 8GB of flash with a 1TB platter.

........ A few months ago he asked me about getting an SSD for the laptop (my hand smacks my forehead).

What he do, fill it up, or forgot he had one?
 
True story: Four years ago my dad asked me to recommend a new laptop (had to have a 17" screen) so I found him a good deal on a nice HP. I also recommended he get an SSD that I would swap for the hard drive so it would be a lot faster as I told him. So he did. I went over to house did the swap. Everything good he was happy. A few months ago he asked me about getting an SSD for the laptop (my hand smacks my forehead).

Don't smack head too hard. He was smart enough to ask for your advice and take it. After four years, he probably forgot what was in the laptop.
 
It's about time... The drives they use on some of these laptops are so painfully slow... I swear, Windows is not designed with HDDs in mind these days. A lot of updates etc. take so darn long, it's painful as heck...
 
Every time I have to set up or work on a Macbook Pro 2012 that many of our users (mostly teachers) still have, I want to throw it out of the windows.
The 5400rpm drive in it is painfully slow.
 
Oh gimme a break. The OEMs charge about twice as much for SSDs compared to what I can buy them for retail.

Edit: and that is an upgrade charge on top of what they are charging for the HDD that normally comes with the desktop or laptop.
 
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Never been graced with using a SSD, best I had was a hybrid drive with a giant 8GB of flash with a 1TB platter.



What he do, fill it up, or forgot he had one?
Forgot, he heard he would get a big speed up going to SSD. Maybe I should have made him use it on the HD for a while before upgrading :).
 
It's about time... The drives they use on some of these laptops are so painfully slow... I swear, Windows is not designed with HDDs in mind these days. A lot of updates etc. take so darn long, it's painful as heck...

Windows 7 updates where slow.

Windows 10's updates are even worse. They are so large/slow/frequent, that I don't bother putting Windows 10 on a laptop unless I also upgrade it with an SSD.

The good part, is that I can take a 3-5 year old high-end laptop, slap in an SSD, install Windows 10, and it's very usable system again..
 
Oh gimme a break. The OEMs charge about twice as much for SSDs compared to what I can buy them for retail.

Edit: and that is an upgrade charge on top of what they are charging for the HDD that normally comes with the desktop or laptop.

Used to be 3-4 times as much. Twice the price is a big improvement.

Dell's SSD prices are so bad, that I order most laptops with the cheapest 5400 rpm drive and put in my own SSD's.
The 5400 rpm drives then go into cheap external cases incase someone needs one to ship out some demos.
 
I'd have an SSD in my laptop (is that different than "notebook"?) but the honest truth is I basically got the cheapest thing that wasn't a completely PoS just for portability not speed/power. At the time me putting a SSD into it would increase the cost anywhere from 30-50%
I always buy dell lease returns for my laptops, because I'm cheap. A few years ago they started showing up with SSDs, picked up one for $250 and it had a 256gb ssd in it (when 256gb ssds were $100 new still). Great score and still using it to this day and runs great. Its a Sandybridge system, so 6+ years old now. I was tempted to put it in my main rig as I only had my old Intel x25m 120gb in it at the time, lol.
 
I have a refurbished Thinkpad with a $40 SSD in it. My main machine at work is a modern i7, 16 gb of RAM, and a RAID 1 array on spinner drives.

Power button to launching first applications (say, Outlook) and them actually being responsive is several minutes faster on the craptop. Ffffuck mechanical drives.
 
5400 RPM laptop spinners are a pure abomination in 2018. A 7200 RPM spinner feels much smoother and of course a SSD feels like a quantum leap.
 
Windows 7 updates where slow.

Windows 10's updates are even worse. They are so large/slow/frequent, that I don't bother putting Windows 10 on a laptop unless I also upgrade it with an SSD.

The good part, is that I can take a 3-5 year old high-end laptop, slap in an SSD, install Windows 10, and it's very usable system again..

That is what I have been doing. I have a slew of Dell M4700/6700/4800/6800 laptops that I've put SSDs in. Damn fine machines.
 
I'm curious where the break over point is that an SSD is cheaper, no matter the capacity than a Hard Drive? I'm guessing OEMs are getting HDDs at $10-$15 per drive, and that is the lower limit of the fixed cost of making a drive. SSDs should at some point undercut that, as the manufacturing is cheaper.
 
I'm curious where the break over point is that an SSD is cheaper, no matter the capacity than a Hard Drive? I'm guessing OEMs are getting HDDs at $10-$15 per drive, and that is the lower limit of the fixed cost of making a drive. SSDs should at some point undercut that, as the manufacturing is cheaper.

You can find new 500gb laptop spinners for under $40, and 1TB's for less than $60.
Low end 128GB SSD's are already around $40, so if you don't need the space, they are already competitive.
The 250GB SSD's start around $70. If you can get by with that size, it's well worth the extra $30
 
I've been worshiping in The Cult Of The SSD for 7-8 years now.
They're awesome in a desktop PC. Destroying high speed RAIDs virtually overnight.

But, in a laptop, they're absolutely transformative.
Laptop drives have always been these pokey little things. Start the machine and...wait...
Current generation M.2 drives make a laptop virtually instant-on and instant-off.
Moreover, their power consumption, compared to hard drives, is miniscule. Leading to faster loading systems with ridiculous amounts of battery time.
 
Oh gimme a break. The OEMs charge about twice as much for SSDs compared to what I can buy them for retail.

Edit: and that is an upgrade charge on top of what they are charging for the HDD that normally comes with the desktop or laptop.


Agreed.

At work, I buy the cheapest piece of crap Dell laptops and throw an 850 Evo in them.

The users are thrilled.
 
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