Prices for flash drives declined consistently throughout the first three quarters of 2024, reaching an average of $0.085 per gigabyte (GB) by September. This marks a reduction of just over 10% since April, following a previous price surge earlier in the year.
In late 2023 and early 2024, flash prices experienced a notable increase as manufacturers curtailed production to drive up prices and achieve better profitability. By April 2024, the average price per gigabyte for solid-state drives (SSDs) had risen to $0.095, representing a significant increase of 26.67% since the previous autumn. At that time, expectations suggested that SSD prices would continue to soar throughout 2024. However, this did not materialize as production ramped up without a corresponding rise in consumer demand, leading to a decline in prices.
In contrast, prices for spinning disk hard drives (SAS and SATA) remained stable at $0.039 per gigabyte, slightly down from $0.041 per gigabyte in early April. This average is composed of current prices of $0.041 for SAS drives and $0.036 for SATA drives.
Focusing on specific types of flash drives, triple-level cell (TLC) flash recorded the highest price per gigabyte in February, reaching $0.11/GB. During the same period, multi-level cell (MLC) flash, which is the most common type sampled, was priced at $0.096/GB, while high-capacity quad-level cell (QLC) flash was priced at $0.088/GB.
This data comes from Computer Weekly’s exclusive analysis, which compiles weekly drive prices from Amazon.com. The information is aggregated by Diskprices.com, which has collected over 45,000 price points and specifications since March 2023, calculating weekly averages for TLC, QLC, and MLC/unspecified flash drives, along with SAS and SATA spinning disks.
The analysis relies on Diskprices.com’s collection of fresh drive prices from Amazon.com, processing an average of over 500 prices and specifications each week. The compiled data spans drives ranging from less than 1TB to 24TB for hard disk drives (HDDs) and up to 12TB for SSDs, with an average storage capacity of 3.9TB per drive.
While the analysis focuses on consumer and small to medium enterprise (SME) prices from Amazon.com, the extensive data collected indicates observable trends in drive pricing. In the absence of enterprise-level price information, this serves as a benchmark for overall drive prices.
When considering drive purchases, price per gigabyte is crucial, but the total cost of ownership throughout the lifespan of the drive—including acquisition cost, energy consumption, and maintenance—is also significant. There remains debate over whether flash drives are consistently more energy-efficient than spinning disks, with Computer Weekly’s calculations suggesting it depends on the specific drive model. Flash drives typically excel in storage density as capacities continue to grow.
While SSDs tend to have a higher upfront purchase cost compared to spinning disks, they generally incur lower maintenance expenses. Cloud storage provider Backblaze, known for its reliability metrics on the multitude of drives in its inventory, reported an annual failure rate (AFR) of 0.9% for SSDs in mid-2023. There has been no updated AFR data for SSDs from Backblaze this year. However, as of August 2024, the AFR for HDDs stood at 1.71%.