Will SSD prices drop because of DDR5

[Early Grayce]

I have noticed that every other SSD has a reduced retail price at the moment.
I see almost all new models cheaper and some older models on sale.
In the past prices of SSDs and Ram have been linked closely to supply and demand so floods and drought in Taiwan and China have both increased prices until production at other fabs can make up the shortfall.
I would love to know if anyone knows what has caused this as I have a couple of theories but no real answers.
My theories are
1. DDR5 in new systems mean more memory chips from DDR4 fabs going toward SSDs.
2. SSDs moving to DDR5 style chips and more fabs moving to that process making larger capacity chips at cheaper prices.
3. Fabs which have been effected by weather related events coming back online.

[GuiltySpark_]

You can buy a 2TB SN770, a speedy Gen4 drive for desktop PC's for $120 right now. This is quite good for most people. ~$90 or so if you're ok with an entry level 2TB Gen3 drive. I'm sure they'll drop more but they're very cheap now.

[BobVonBob]

It looks like you think NAND flash (SSDs) and SDRAM (DDR4/5 RAM) are the same thing. They aren't. Perhaps you confused PCIe Gen 4/5 SSDs with DDR4/5 RAM?

 

Either way, while the two manufacturing processes aren't totally separate (same companies, same materials, SDRAM sometimes used in SSDs for cache, etc.) resulting in their prices often trending the same direction, not all memory is interchangeable. A DDR4 chip will lose all its data when it doesn't have power, and a NAND flash chip is (relatively) slow. Neither makes a good substitute for the other.

[Early Grayce]

9 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

It looks like you think NAND flash (SSDs) and SDRAM (DDR4/5 RAM) are the same thing. They aren't. Perhaps you confused PCIe Gen 4/5 SSDs with DDR4/5 RAM?

 

Either way, while the two manufacturing processes aren't totally separate (same companies, same materials, SDRAM sometimes used in SSDs for cache, etc.) resulting in their prices often trending the same direction, not all memory is interchangeable. A DDR4 chip will lose all its data when it doesn't have power, and a NAND flash chip is (relatively) slow. Neither makes a good substitute for the other.

I am not confused by this at all.
They were just hypothesis and if both the DDR4 SDRAM and the NAND could be made at the same fabs there is the potential for production to be moved from the SDRAM to NAND as less ddr4 ram units are required during the current changeover from DDR4 to DDR5.
If these are produced at the same fabs then it could also explain the slow increase in capacity/reduction in price over the last decade as DDR4 has been around for a decade now.

[Jurrunio]

1 hour ago, Early Grayce said:

1. DDR5 in new systems mean more memory chips from DDR4 fabs going toward SSDs.

Why wont they just go make DDR5 then? Those can be sold for more per unit of material.

 

1 hour ago, Early Grayce said:

2. SSDs moving to DDR5 style chips and more fabs moving to that process making larger capacity chips at cheaper prices.

As DRAM cache goes, DDR4 is sufficient. Also I dont think DDR5 is made in different process nodes than late DDR4. I know Hynix just uses 10nm for both, maybe different revisions but still.

 

1 hour ago, Early Grayce said:

3. Fabs which have been effected by weather related events coming back online.

This is the only reasonable sounding one to me.

 

15 minutes ago, Early Grayce said:

If these are produced at the same fabs then it could also explain the slow increase in capacity/reduction in price over the last decade as DDR4 has been around for a decade now.

1. There's not much use for huge capacity SSDs. 4TB+ drives are typically bought for durability, redundancy, price etc, not performance. SSDs dont have much advantage on this segment of the market over HDDs. Especially since QLC NAND that they tried to use to reduce price wasn't well accepted on this expensive side of the market at all.

 

2. Even if DDR5 became popular, SSDs still won't get cheaper any quicker. They are bound by technology of silicon manufacturing, not DRAM or NAND.

[NobleGamer]

4 hours ago, Early Grayce said:

I have noticed that every other SSD has a reduced retail price at the moment.

The price drops started at the end of 2022 simpy because of NAND flash oversupply and lower demand: https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/27/trendforce_nand_flash_prices_2022_ssd/

 

Its that simple. Since then, demand hasn't picked back up, so many suppressed prices have stayed the same.