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  • iwod - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    Is there a reason why SATA drives are cheaper. The BOM cost shouldn't be that much of a difference. Controller prices are only slightly cheaper.
  • Cliff34 - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    The only reason I can think of is a marketing one. They wanted to market nvm as a luxury item.. As such Mark it up.
  • DeepLake - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    How do you know controller prices?
  • Samus - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    It was actually leaked awhile back what phison, silicon motion, and other “kit” controllers cost for ADATA. They are between $12-$17 in 1000 unit quantities.

    Other vendors may pay more or less, but I would imagine the metric is similar.

    Indilinx charged OCZ $13 for the SF2281 up until their purchase by OCZ, as shown in the FTC filing for Indilinx acquisition as it was no longer considered a trade secret. During the 2014 Toshiba buyout, as disclosed in their bankruptcy documents, OCZ reported TSMC charged $10 per chip in 10,000 unit quantities to manufacture the barefoot 3 on the 65nm node through 2012-2013. The ARM licensing fee was 91 cents USD per chip. Had OCZ sold that chip which cost $7 to produce to third parties the market rate of common SSD controllers, you do the math to calculate an estimated profit margin. It’s pretty small.

    Samsung has it even better because they do everything in-house. They don’t really pay anybody for anything, simply just shuffle money around different divisions.
  • Chaitanya - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    More mature technology in terms of protocols and controllers so much cheaper to produce compared to NVME drives.
  • peevee - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    Makes NO sense.
  • Flunk - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    A lot of technology costs are front-loaded, you need to pay for all that R&D somehow.
  • HStewart - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    I would think a lot of this is because of completion like the Western Digital new Black series especially with it good reviews. I had Dell Rewards from XPS 15 2in1 purchase, so I got the green one basically free - it should be ok - it only in USBC enclosure. If not taken account of GPU and extra cores - the XPS 15 2in1 is better than the new XPS 15 - I curious why the new XPS 15 does not have two Thunderbolt 3's
  • Kevin G - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    There is bit more room in the 2.5" SATA form factor so there is the *option* of using more but less dense NAND packages to reach a given capacity. However, there has been a push to use fewer packages and channels to cut costs even in the SATA space.

    There is one more factor why M.2 may use higher density (and thus more expensive) NAND is that M.2 cards typically are single sided where as 2.5" SATA can easily be double sided.
  • peevee - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    We are talking about m.2 PCIe vs m.2 SATA. 2.5" has nothing to do with it.
  • MajGenRelativity - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    Glad to see more pricing pressure in the SSD market. Samsung pushing prices down is always a good thing
  • Lolimaster - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    Unless you work editing 4k(+) videos, there's no need for anything over the Crucial MX500.
  • MajGenRelativity - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    I work with virtualization and multiple different server software, which could benefit from faster storage. I definitely can't max out a 970 Pro, but my 960 Evo has served me well so far
  • LarryTempleton - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    Right... LOL “Samsung pushing prices down.” The business model Samsung is quite the opposite— in fact this article is more proof of Samsung price gouging (to the furthest extent they can “legally” get away with it) until the furthest possible point in time. The industry can’t even be called competitive or semi competitive. There are just a couple real players that control prices, so both innovation and value are significantly held back. (Should solid state HD’s still be so expensive that in 2018 they still haven’t pushed out platter drives altogether?)
  • Achaios - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    I was looking at my Samsung 840 Evo 500 GB SMART Data, and it says that in 5 years, I have written 9762 GB to the drive and consequently my drive has got a "Drive Remaining Life" reading of "98%" according to HWINFO (aka Wear Levelling Count).

    At this rate, I won't be needing a new SSD in this life.
  • Flunk - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    They can fail for other reasons as well. I had a Samsung 840 Pro fail at 4 years for no obvious reason at all. Surprisingly, still under warranty so they sent me a 850 Pro as a replacement.
  • Samus - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    Ditto. After my 840 EVO failed (not related to the performance bug) they replaced with an 850 EVO. I’ve heard similar stories. Of course the common theme is Samsung support is a pain in the ass to deal with, my turnaround was 2 weeks from when my drive failed to getting a working replacement in my hands.
  • Wolfclaw - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    Wonder if the recent DRAM price fixing investigation has them rattled and they are now looking at other items that may cause them issues.
  • Flunk - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    I doubt it, I think they just want to crush the competition.
  • close - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    They're not really crushing any competition. None of the NAND manufacturers is in the position to "crush" any of the others without taking a serious hit to the bottom line. Not yet anyway.

    And being the most expensive player on the market doesn't really help them crush anyone.
  • FunBunny2 - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    with everybody and his cat building out new fabs, one might wonder where all that output is expected to go??? the thing is, amortizing all that hard capital (and a bit of IP) demands 100% (or more, if you can squeeze it out) capacity use. there's so little direct labor involved, that whipping the serfs won't generate anywhere near enough margin; volume is the only way to reduce average cost. and that's all the bean counters care about.
  • StrangerGuy - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    I just want China to swamp everyone by their domestic NAND production...I don't give a rat's ass if their SSDs has 50% less transfer rates than Samsung on paper if it can give 3X or more in terms of GB per dollar.
  • Magichands8 - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    And the prices are STILL ridiculously high. Maybe they're desperately trying to find buyers for their M.2 drives? That would make sense. No reason to buy anything new I think for a few more years at this rate.
  • ibnmadhi - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    40 cents per gigabyte for a top-tier consumer SSD is "ridiculously high"? Last time I bought an SSD I paid $1/GB for a SATA drive and it was a good deal.
  • Death666Angel - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    You realize you are talking trash here, right? No one ever said "I will get more buyers by pricing my items too high". That's not how the world works.
  • FunBunny2 - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    "You realize you are talking trash here, right? No one ever said "I will get more buyers by pricing my items too high". "

    ummm????? Apple?????
  • Magichands8 - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    No, instead they say "Hey, why don't we mark up the prices on these drives by 400% above where we could still be making a profit off of them? After all, there are plenty of kids around who are willing to pay that even though they can't tell the difference in performance between our drives and the ones selling at 1/3rd the price. Not to mention all the suckers out there who'll still compare these prices to those they paid for drives sold 5+ years ago and then pat themselves on the back for finding a super amazing deal! Just gotta make sure we don't tell any of them that in a year and half prices will have to come down fast if we want to move any of our drives due supply increases."
  • XabanakFanatik - Monday, May 7, 2018 - link

    Speaking of the 970 Pro... Is there a review on the horizon for it?
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    The 2TB 970 EVO was in the middle of the pack in the storagereview.com tests, while the 500GB version was at the bottom. Definitely not worth the price premium Samsung charges.
  • Billy Tallis - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    Considering the kind of tests StorageReview ran and the kinds of drives they compared it against, that conclusion is completely irrelevant to most consumers.
  • SharpEars - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    Why is there no 2TB pro option?
  • oRAirwolf - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link

    MLC nand is not as dense as TLC nand and requires more physical space.

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