One of the most repeated mantras is that hard drives are much cheaper, however, despite the fact that this statement is true, it is not true from a certain point of view and the reality is that an SSD is cheaper than a hard drive. How is this possible when in stores a 1 TB hard drive costs less than an SSD of the same type? Well, it depends on the context and we’ll show you why this claim isn’t nonsense.
One of the reasons why certain components disappear from the world of hardware is not because the public accepts or rejects them, but because the manufacturers decide to do without them at some point. When does the phenomenon occur? When a replacement technology not only exceeds its specifications, but also becomes good enough and costs less.
An SSD is cheaper than a hard drive
We decided to take a look at PC components to see if an SSD can be cheaper than an HDD. We decided to dispense with specifications such as the number of gigabytes of storage, the transfer interface, the form factor and various elements. Rather, what we want to know is whether the cheapest SSD costs less than the cheapest HDD. And what were the results?
So we find that the cheapest SSD costs less than the cheapest HDD. This is because the number of components required to build a basic SSD is lower and costs less to manufacture than manufacturing an HDD. Another thing, and it’s completely independent of the cost per GB of storage.
What is the reason for such a price difference?
Well, simply because the cost curve is different in both types of devices, even though their utility is the same. The reason an SSD is cheaper than an HDD is because the basics of building an SSD are:
- A chip that serves as a flash controller.
- At least one NAND Flash memory chip for storage.
- You can put in a RAM memory chip because it supports the flash controller, but it can also be DRAM-less and use system memory. Obviously, the performance will not be the same.
- Finally, we will need a PCB or a printed circuit where to place all the elements.
Instead, on a hard drive, we need:
- A controller chip
- With a RAM memory that serves as an intermediate data buffer.
- Obviously the PCB where all the two previous items will go.
- The head that will read the disc.
- Motors that move mechanical parts.
- The dishes where the data is stored.
Not to mention that the process of manufacturing an HDD is much more expensive than manufacturing an SSD because multiple steps are required. This leads to the paradox that an SSD is cheaper than an HDD. This will have long-term consequences for the PC component industry, especially when there is sufficient storage capacity. In fact, this is one of the reasons why many manufacturers have stopped using the 1.8 inch hard drive on your very low consumption laptops to replace them with flash memory in eMMC format.
Due to costs, SSDs will replace HDDs
Among the first digital cameras was the SONY Mavica, they had poor image quality and were so old they used floppy disks, but digital photography improved until it became quite good for eventually replacing conventional photography. Well, the same process will happen with respect to SSDs and HDDs, and while it’s true that the latter will always have the cheapest gigabyte, when it comes to assembling a computer for manufacturers it will be much cheaper to throw away for an SSD.
What will happen when the storage capacity of SSDs is sufficient for the general public? If we take into account that the manufacturing time of an SSD is cheaper than an HDD and we extrapolate this to the need for an assembler to manufacture hundreds of thousands or even millions of computers, this translates into incredible cost savings on a large scale. ladder.
