Prices for solid-state drives (SSDs) have dropped in the last two quarters, starting from September 2024. Meanwhile, prices for SAS hard disk drives (HDDs) have gone up.
Flash drive prices, including MLC, TLC, and QLC types, decreased from about $0.085 per gigabyte to just under $0.079, marking a 7% drop. In contrast, SAS spinning disk prices rose from $0.041 to $0.049 per gigabyte, an 18% increase. The reason for this spike isn’t entirely clear, but 2024 saw several high-capacity HDD launches, like Western Digital’s 32TB shingled drive and Toshiba’s 24TB and 28TB models.
Earlier in 2024, flash drive prices had already slipped to $0.085 per gigabyte after peaking earlier in the year. The cost per gigabyte for SSDs had even climbed to an average of $0.095 by April 2024, seeing a significant 26.67% rise since the fall of 2023. Many expected SSD prices to soar even higher, but increasing production didn’t meet customer demand, leading to declining prices instead.
On the other hand, the average prices for spinning disk hard drives, including both SAS and SATA models, have remained relatively stable, with a minor rise from $0.039 to $0.041 since September 2024. However, within that average, the 18% jump in SAS drive prices is significant.
This data comes from Computer Weekly’s analysis of drive prices sourced from Amazon.com and compiled by Diskprices.com. They’ve tracked over 65,000 drive prices and specifications since March 2023, calculating weekly averages for various flash and spinning disk types.
Even though this analysis focuses on consumer and SME prices from Amazon, the extensive data helps highlight trends in the market, especially given the lack of data from enterprise sellers.
When it comes to storage, the price per gigabyte matters, but total ownership costs are also crucial—considering purchase price, energy consumption, and maintenance. The range of drives analyzed spans from less than 1TB to 26TB for HDDs and up to 12TB for SSDs, with an average drive capacity of 3.8TB.
While SSDs tend to carry a higher upfront cost than spinning disks, their maintenance expenses frequently turn out to be lower. For instance, Backblaze, which monitors over 300,000 drives, reported an annual failure rate of just 0.9% for its SSDs in mid-2023. In contrast, the failure rate for HDDs in 2024 was reported at 1.57%.