SSD and HDD Price Analysis: End of Shortage In Sight?

Subject: Storage | December 18, 2011 - 11:20 AM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: WD, thailand, ssd, Seagate, hdd, Hard Drive, flooding

The hard drive industry might be recovering more quickly than expected and the entire tech field should be hoping that is the case.  We have been covering the unfortunate disaster in Thailand and the accompanying disruption in the world of storage since things first started hitting the fan in October.  The initial result was a very dramatic price increase on traditional spinning disks - prices going up as much as 200% in some cases.  This week we got our hands on some very interesting data from Dynamite Data, a company focused on channel monitoring, that they were willing to let us share with you.

First, the bad news that we already know about - the price increases we have seen percolate throughout the entire industry in the last two months.

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This graph shows the average price of the top 50 spinning disk drives over the last year in red and the very specific Western Digital Velociraptor 150GB pricing on Amazon.com in blue.  You can see that around October 16th the big price increase began and over the entire ecommerce span that Dynamite Data monitors, prices on the top 50 HDDs went up by 42%.  And while not shown in the graph, other provided data shows that at its peak the low-cost leaders in the HDD market increased their prices by 150% as of early December.

Why did this happen?  Looking at inventory levels clearly shows the drop in availability.

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Based on those same top 50 SKUs, we saw ecommerce inventory drop by 90% in late October (in less than one week!) after the first impact on the supply chain that occurred on October 8th. What is interesting is that it took a week or more for the price changes to take place based on the analysis of the disaster in Thailand.  Much to the dismay of many of the conspiracy theorists out there though this data definitely backs up the price increases from WD, Seagate and others. 

There is an uplifting bit of news in both of the above the graphs though - look towards the end of the time lines of gathered data.  Both show movement in the direction of consumer's interests: a jump in inventory and a drop in average pricing.  WD announced on November 30th that the first of its production facilities was back online and we are already seeing results.  Of course the CEO of Seagate is still claiming that it will take more than a year for the industry to recover but it looks like supply may increase at a quicker rate than initially expected. 

Finally, just for a bit of added bonus coverage, many have wondered if the price increase on traditional spinning drives would affect the pricing of SSDs.  Well, it looks like did at least for a 10 day span.

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Over the last year prices for solid state drives have dropped by 23% on the top 50 devices available with one minor hiccup.  In a 10 day period between the end of October and early November, there was an SSD price increase that isn't explainable by any kind of inventory changes or supply line changes.  This was likely due to the HDD shortage and vendors looking to maximize profits when consumers didn't have access to the low cost hard drives they were used to.  But because the price increase lasted such a short time I think we can clearly see that customers didn't fall for the ploy and the hiccup was quickly self-corrected.

Even though we have been monitoring prices on our own since the Thailand disaster first occurred, it is great to get some hard data to put alongside our presumptions.  While there is tons of bad news still to digest for at least the first two quarters of 2012, the information provided by Dynamite Data provides some hope that the worst is behind us.  If you are interested in more analysis of this data and you will be at CES in January, you should stop by the Storage Visions conference where there will be a short talk on the topic. 

Podcast #182 - Intel Core i7-3930K, AMD 7000 Series rumors, a new low price SSD from OCZ and more!

Subject: Editorial | December 15, 2011 - 01:57 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: ssd, podcast, ocz, nvidia, macbook pro, Intel, hdd, gigabyte, dell, apple, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #182 - 12/15/2011

Join us this week as we talk about the Intel Core i7-3930K, AMD 7000 Series rumors, a new low price SSD from OCZ and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!

Program length: 1:15:55

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:32 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:02:54 Dell Inspiron 14z Notebook Review: A Portable Workhorse
6. 0:03:57 Gigabyte E350N-USB3 Fusion Mini ITX Motherboard Review
7. 0:08:12 Video Perspective: Antec Eleven Hundred Case Review
8. 0:12:20 Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E Processor
9. 0:23:27 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
   
10. 0:24:15 Some Details About AMD’s 7000 Series Graphics Cards Leak To Internet
11. 0:27:00 Bad for reviewers, great for gamers ... AMD will allow non-reference Tahiti graphics cards
12. 0:32:10 How much of PCI-E 3.0 is just marketing speak right now
13. 0:36:05 OCZ Technology Petrol SATA 6Gbps SSDs Reduce SSD Deployment Costs by Thirty Percent (Hynix flash)
14. 0:42:30 Two Catalysts from AMD; 11.12 and a highly recommended preview version of 12.1
15. 0:45:05 Intel Scales Back Sales Outlook Due To Hard Drive Shortage
16. 0:50:10 Apple May Bring High Pixel Density Displays To MacBook Pro Notebooks
17. 0:57:56 Voicemail - 3d gaming, special graphics card, what games, etc?
18. 1:03:54 Voicemail - SSDs - SF drive and Gaming
19. 1:07:12 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: 4GB to 8GB of memory - do it!!
    2. Jeremy: How have I never thought of this? Also, the 3930K since it proved to be about 95%+ of the performance for about 60% of the cost ... if you can find it
    1. Josh: You Monster!
    2. Allyn: Cheap SSD's for the holidays, do it!
20. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
21. http://pcper.com/podcast   
22. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
23. Closing

OCZ Technology Petrol SATA 6Gbps SSDs Reduce SSD Deployment Costs by Thirty Percent

Subject: Storage | December 13, 2011 - 01:02 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ssd, sata 6Gbs, petrol, ocz

SAN JOSE, CA - Dec. 13, 2011 - OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs), today launched the Indilinx Everest-based Petrol SSD Series. The Petrol Series enables further adoption of SSDs in cost-sensitive applications, while taking advantage of real world performance and complete feature set of the Indilinx Everest platform.

"Until today, SSD adoption has been limited to high performance applications due to the high cost of SSDs in relation to slower rotating discs, and we are proud to once again close the gap in pricing without sacrificing durability," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "The new Petrol Series showcases the flexibility of the Indilinx Everest platform and NDurance™ Technology, allowing OCZ to deliver the benefits of SSDs to a wide new set of applications while retaining the superior real world performance and reduced latency that separate Everest-based SSDs from our competitors."

The OCZ Petrol Series delivers bandwidth up to 400MB/s and 35,000 IOPS, and is optimized for the complete spectrum of file types and sizes. Additionally, advanced features unique to Indilinx, such as proprietary page mapping algorithms, allow for steady mixed-workload performance, and innovative latency reduction technology enables superior access times as low as 0.06ms. Petrol ensures the most consistent and reliable performance as well as minimized performance degradation even after the drive's storage capacity is highly utilized.

The OCZ Petrol SSD Series will be available in models ranging from 64GB-512GB capacities throughout OCZ's global channel in the coming weeks.

High Octane drives from OCZ

Subject: Storage | December 12, 2011 - 02:14 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ocz, Octane, Octane 512GB, Indilinx Everest, Indilinx Barefoot, ssd, sata 6Gbs

As has been covered on the front page before, OCZ is making their new Octane lineup of SSDs a little confusing for the enthusiast.  If you are not careful you can end up with the non-SATA 6Gbs S2 model.  The new Octane series does offer an advantage to those using non-compressible data, the Indilinx controller does not do the same compression technique which SandForce uses which will make the performance of this drive consistent regardless of the data being manipulated.  As you might expect Legit Reviews testing does see the top speeds of the new Octane lagging behind SandForce based drives in some cases but the overall performance is neck and neck with Intel as they also do not compress data.  Check out the full review to see a return to Indilinx and a renewal of competition for SandForce controllers.

"It's interesting to see how OCZ is marketing these Octane new Solid State Drives. They are 'Indilinx infused' vesrus 'SandForce driven'. Indilinx drives have nDurance technology while SandForce has DuraClass technology. I can't help but be reminded of the movie Coming To America where Cleo McDowell comments on his feud with McDonald's: "Look... me and the McDonald's people got this little misunderstanding. See, they're McDonald's... I'm McDowell's. They got the Golden Arches, mine is the Golden Arcs. They got the Big Mac, I got the Big Mick. We both got two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, but their buns have sesame seeds. My buns have no seeds..."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

• Corsair Force GT Series 240 GB and Corsair Force 3 Series 240 GB Solid State Drives @ X-bit Labs
• Samsung 830 SATA III 6Gbps 128GB SSD @ XSReviews
• Silicon Power Velox V30 60 GB SSD @ techPowerUp
• Samsung 830 SATA3 SSD 256GB @ OC3D
• Patriot Pyro SE 120GB & 240GB Review @ OCC
• ADATA S510 120GB Solid State Drive @ kitguru
• Patriot Pyro SE Solid State Drive @ Benchmark Reviews
• SSD Components and Make Up - An SSD Primer @ The SSD Review
• Kingston Earth Angel USB Drive @ HardwareBistro
• SilverStone RVS02 SATA Enclosure @ Phoronix
• G-Technology G-DRIVE Mobile HDD @ Tweaktown
• QNAP TurboNAS TS-419P II NAS Server Review @ Real World Labs
• Synology DS212 NAS Review @ Tech-Reviews
• Cyberlink Power2Go Review @ Hi Tech Legion

Careful which model of OCZ Octane you pick up

Subject: Storage | December 6, 2011 - 02:47 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Octane, ssd, sata 6Gps, ocz, Octane 512GB, Indilinx Everest

If you are looking at OCZ SSDs and are considering the Octane line, please bear in mind that the S2 model which is selling for less than the non-S2 model is a SATA 3Gbp/s drive not a new 6Gb/s capable drive.  The testing done at The Tech Report was on the 6Gbp/s model and they compared this Indilinx Everest powered SSD against a variety of competing SSDs.  The drive comes with a 3 year warranty and comes in 128GB, 256GB, the 512GB model The Tech Report reviewed as well as a 1TB model which will cost a pretty penny.  If you do choose a smaller drive, remember that the reduced channel count will make the drive perform more slowly than the larger models.

"OCZ bought SSD controller maker Indilinx earlier this year, and the first product of that acquisition is now out. Join us for a look at the Octane SSD and its new Everest controller."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

• OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 240 GB Review @ OCC
• Patriot Pyro SE 120GB @ Tweaktown
• Intel SSD 520 Series 'Sandforce Driven' SSD Close To Release @ The SSD Review
• Crucial m4 256GB SATA 6Gbit/s SSD Review @ Techgage
• OCZ RevoDrive 3 PCI-Express SSD Review @ OCIA
• Kingston HyperX 240GB Solid State Drive Review @ ThinkComputers
• Samsung 830 Series 512GB SSD @ kitguru
• NVELO Dataplex SSD Cache Tested With 7 mSATA SSDS @ The SSD Review
• Seagate 750GB Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive Review @ PCSTATS
• Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Gen 2 (ST750LX003) @ Bjorn3D
• Silverstone Treasure TS04 2.5" USB 3.0 Drive @ circuitREMIX
• SilverStone Raven RVS02 External USB 3.0 HDD / SSD Enclosure Review @ Legit Reviews
• Synology DiskStation DS212j and DS212+ @ Legion Hardware
• QNAP TS-419P II NAS Network Storage Server @ Benchmark Reviews
• Synology DiskStation DS212j NAS Server Review @ Real World Labs
• Increase RAID Rebuild / rsync Performance for QNAP NAS @ Computing on Demand
• IOCELL NetDISK 351UNE Network Storage Device @ Benchmark Reviews
• Silicon Power Diamond D05 750GB USB 3.0 @ techPowerUp

Podcast #180 - NVIDIA GTX560 Ti 448 Core, OCZ Octane 512GB SSD, Battlefield 3 Laptop performance and more!

Subject: Editorial | December 1, 2011 - 04:07 PM | Ken Addison
Tagged: ssd, podcast, ocz, Octane, nvidia, Intel, battlefield 3, amd, 560ti 448

PC Perspective Podcast #180 - 12/01/2011

Join us this week as we talk about the NVIDIA GTX560 Ti 448 Core, OCZ Octane 512GB SSD, Battlefield 3 Laptop performance and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

• iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
• RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
• MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Josh Walrath, Jeremy Hellstrom, and Allyn Malvantano

Program length: 1:17:32

Program Schedule:

1. 0:00:54 Introduction
2. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
3. http://pcper.com/podcast
4. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
5. 0:01:23 Did you listen to our The Inside Perspective?  Send us your feedback?
6. 0:02:35 Battlefield 3 Laptop Performance Review: Road Warrior?
7. 0:04:00 Video Perspective: Antec P280 Case Review
8. 0:09:30 OCZ Octane 512GB SSD Full Review - Indilinx Has Returned With Everest
9. 0:20:40 Amazon Kindle Fire Review: Can $200 Buy a Great Tablet?
10. 0:22:30 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Core Limited Edition Graphics Card Review
11. 0:31:45 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI Computer, and their all new Sandy Bridge Motherboards!
    
12. 0:32:45 Thermaltake Frio OCK Universal CPU Cooler Review
13. 0:34:00 Seagate says hard drive industry will take a year to recover
14. 0:42:20 Video Perspective: CyberPower Gamer Ultra 2098 System
15. 0:44:00 Batman: Arkham City DX11 Stuttering Issue
16. 0:46:00 TSMC finds its 28nm dance card a little overbooked
17. 0:52:28 AMD Releasing Branded DDR3 Memory To Compliment Desktop Platforms
18. 0:58:20 Gear Up with MSI: Win Intel Motherboards, GeForce Graphics Cards
19. 1:01:00 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
    1. Ryan: Skyrim?  Level 11!
    2. Jeremy: Let's here it for PC Gaming
    3. Josh: Arkham City for $25... last Friday on Origin.
    4. Allyn: A possible free 50GB cloud storage investment
20. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
21. http://pcper.com/podcast   
22. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
23. Closing

Third time is the charm? Seagate releases the third generation of their hybrid drive

Subject: Storage | November 29, 2011 - 06:19 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: hybrid, momentus XT, hdd, ssd, Seagate, sata 6Gbs

Over the past few years Seagate has been trying to perfect a way to get the best of both storage worlds by combining an SSD as a semi-permanent cache for a large platter based hard drive.  The new Seagate Momentus XT is the third generation of this series, a 750GB HDD with a 8GB SLC SSD available to cache frequently used files and are calling it FAST (Flash-Assisted Storage Technology).  Legit Reviews investigated their performance claims, after repeatedly using the drive to fill the cache as this drive will perform exactly like the platter based drive it is until that cache has moved frequently accessed or slow to load files into the flash memory.  It did seem to reduce boot times and program loading to almost SSD levels, though it does not effect infrequently used programs.  It was significantly less expensive than an SSD so if you tend to do similar tasks on your PC every day and need the large storage space this drive might just be for you.

"Overall, we'd certainly recommend the Momentus XT and frankly wouldn't go back to a plain old hard drive unless we were forced to. The expediency of boot and application load times are something that, once you get used to it, you can't seem to live without. Keep in mind that it may take two or three times for the Adaptive Memory Technology to decide that it should be cached and speed things up. On the down side, every operation is not SSD fast, especially if you're performing it for the first time..."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

• Seagate's Momentus XT 750GB hybrid hard drive @ The Tech Report
• Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 Hybrid 750GB Review @ OCC
• Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid Hard Drive Review @ Hardware Canucks
• Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid @ Benchmark Reviews
• Seagate Momentus 7200.5 750GB Hard Drive Review @ Legit Reviews
• Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB 5400RPM @ Tweaktown
• QNAP TS-879U-RP High Performance SMB NAS @ CoD
• Thecus N8900 8-Bay Rackmount NAS @ Tweaktown
• Synology DiskStation DS712+ NAS Review @ TechwareLabs
• QNAP TurboNAS TS-219P II NAS Server Review @ Real World Labs
• Corsair Performance Pro 256GB SSD Review @ HardwareHeaven
• OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 120GB Review @ HCW
• Silicon Power Diamon D05 USB 3.0 External Drive @ Bjorn3D
• Patriot Pyro SE 6Gbps 240GB SSD Review @ The SSD Review
• Kingston HyperX 3.0 128GB 8-Channel USB Flash Drive Review @ Real World Labs

OCZ Technology Launches Talos 2 Enterprise SAS 6G Solid State Drive

Subject: Storage | November 29, 2011 - 11:52 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ocz, talos 2, enterprise, ssd, sata 6Gbs

SAN JOSE, CA – November 29, 2011 - OCZ Technology Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:OCZ), a leading provider of high-performance solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing devices and systems, announces the Talos 2 Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) SSD Series, the follow-up to the high performance, high capacity Talos Series previously available only in a 3.5 inch form factor.

With capacities up to 1TB now available in a compact 2.5-inch form factor, Talos 2 offers increased I/O performance and scalability in enterprise storage environments. Talos 2 leverages OCZ Virtualized Controller Architecture 2.0 technology which implements an intelligent complex command queuing structure with unique queue balancing algorithms to provide exceptional performance. Talos 2 SSDs deliver superior random transactional performance at up to 70,000 4K IOPS and features improved mixed workload (75% read; 25% write) performance with up to 42,000 8K IOPS.

^{You can bet these SSDs will not be the least expensive per gigabyte on the market}

Unlike many SAS SSDs, the Talos Series is dual-ported to offer superior data integrity and increased performance, along with delivering a robust enterprise feature-set including DataWrite Assurance Protection in case of sudden power loss. Talos 2 also includes the option to enable T10-DIF (Data Integrity Field), allowing for the insertion of 8 bytes of additional data during transfers to ensure complete data integrity.

“The Talos 2 SAS solid state drives expand on the original series by offering enterprise customers superior performance, reliability, and density all in a compact footprint,” said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ technology Group. “The Talos 2 enterprise SSDs are optimized for the most demanding storage systems and provide clients with an easy to deploy solution that vastly improves application performance over traditional SAS based HDDs.”

To address the complete spectrum of applications, Talos 2 SSDs are available in 100GB to 1TB capacities, in MLC, eMLC, and SLC NAND configurations. OCZ is now sampling Talos 2 to strategic customers and the drives will be made available to SMB and enterprise clients through OCZ's global business-to-business channel.