NAND flash memory drives really came into their own in 2010. With current SSD's clearly outpacing ANY spinning platter drive, they're the single best performance enhancing upgrade you can buy. 64GB and 128GB are the sweet spot cost-wise and deliver unprecedented performance at affordable prices. Large 256GB and now 512GB drives still beyond wallet's reach for most. In the year ahead, be on the lookout for 6GBps SATA III drives coming down the pike.

Solid State Drive Price Deals

NEW PRICE LOW: $2.50 per GB
Patriot Signature Series

Sandforce Controller Chip


Of note: Amazon's SSD Drive Selection keeps growing and prices is getting ALOT more competitive - especially their 3rd-party sellers - often undercutting NewEgg's prices. Recently the 80Gb Intel Mainstream drive has hit $218 - around the average price point of many smaller 64GB drives have these days.

NewEgg.com has a large range of SSD Drives -- Once the Go-Place for SSD hunting Geeks, they're not always as cut-throat competitive as they used to be as demand for flash memory and its commodity pricing levels the playing field. You really have to watch thier newsletters, rebates and promos closely to snag deep discount deals. The SSDs on rebate at NewEgg in May 2010 are a range of Kingston, Patriot and Dane-Electric drives.

NEW 120GB SSD Price Low

OCZ Technology is revamping their drive lineup with the new '2' series: OCZ is also changing the size of thier drive capacities with the new '2' line: in 50GB, 100GB and 200GB sizes to replace their previous 30/60/120/250GB lineup. It seems they're allocating more 'spare' flash memory space for reliability and performance reasons. First out of the gate: there's notably improved performance in the value-priced Solid 2 Series line by switching from the older generation JMicron to a tried-and-true Indilinx Barefoot controller chipset.
OCZ's Solid 2 Series

Higher Performance, Low Cost Per GB
As Low as $2.25/GB + Free Shipping

SSD Price Bargains

> TigerDirect.com has recently expanded their inventory of SSDs - and like NewEgg.com are rather fond of SSD rebate promos if you're willing to play the game by the rebates rules. See what SSD deals they've currently got by searching here:
Search at TigerDirect.com:


BEST SSD PRICES & REBATES

> A few pricing quirks recently: Amazon OCZ Price Check Snafu? For around $200 you could have either an OCZ 60GB Vertex, Apex, Agility, or Solid Series. But you wouldn't anything other than the Vertex with its superior read-write performance and Indilinx controller chip for the money. Amazon is generally very price competitive - but pricing can change from day to day depending on competition from it's own 3rd party sellers. Any way you slice it: Great deal on the Vertex SATA II drive - the just-released Agility 2 ain't a bad option either..

Top-Performing SSD Disk Deals

> Single-Layer SLC drives continue to provide the best write speeds and longevity - at a price. In the Multi-Layer MLC arena, Intel's custom chipset, Indilix 'Barefoot' chip and Samsung's latest controllers lead the pack.
           
80GB Intel MLC
Mainstream Series
25% Price Cut		60GB OCZ
Vertex Indilinx Controller		SATA III SSD
6Gbps Interface
Intel X25-M SATA
 		OCZ's Best SSD Value
 		Crucial C300 SATA 3

For SATA 3 Motherboards

Best Tech Analysis Articles of 2010:

> For those seeking ultimate disk performance, check out this nerdy yet informative in-depth analysis of SSD drive controllers and chipset design by Anand at www.anandtech.com. His extensive take on the Solid-State storage market in his "Final Thoughts" section is a must-read for Top-Performance Geek-Freaks. PC Perspective has a good take on OCZ's Apex Series vs Intel X25-M vs Velociraptor etc in this Apex SSD Benchmarks/Comparison with concluding thoughts. Keep in mind, Anandtech - and other deep-geek sites fret over nanaosecond differences that the average consumer wouldn't perceive - or care about.

Low-Cost Bargain SSD Deals

> Several previous-generation drives were recently removed from this section. Most were OLD JMicron 602 controller chip SSDs which were just not optimal for smooth WRITE performance in particular. However, revised next-generation JMicron controllers with far more onboard cache are now available in 2010 - and will likely be widely used in many 'VALUE' series drives. Unless you can find discontinued models at an absolute bargain-bin closeout price -- focus on finding a new Jmicron 612, Indilinx, Samsung or Intel chipset drive for better overall performance.

DRIVES OF NOTE FROM INTEL CRUICIAL, CORSAR, SUPERTALENT

128GB Solid State Drive Less Than $300: Patriot PE128GS25SSDR Warp Series Extreme Performance SATA-II 2.5" SSD
Middle of the road SSD performance - but ample capacity at this price point.

For easy mounting a small Serial-ATA solid-state laptop drive in desktop computers:
Convert your 2.5" SATA disk to standard 3.5" mounts w/an ICY DOCK SATA II ADAPTER CASE
ICY DOCK MB882SP-1S-1 2.5
Smart design: just plop a 2.5"drive in - tension springs hold it in place - and slide the cover shut. 4 standard drive-rail mount screws are all thats needed to complete the SSD installation in your computer.

Want MAXIMUM performance? Buy two matching flash drives and put them in a RAID case:
SATA II Dual-Drive RAID Enclosure with a standard 3.5" form-factor with both SATA and mini-USB 2.0 interface

For Geeky-Types This SATA enclosure has DIP-Switches to configure different RAID Levels, or set to JBOD modes.

SLUG IT OUT ON EBAY FOR LOW-COST SSD DISKS

eBay's starting to list an interesting selection of solid-state drives - tho beware of discontinued, previous generation, used drives:


SSD COST PREDICTIONS - TRENDS FOR 2010

Like hard drives, SSD's are rapidly becoming high-volume COMMODITY ITEMS. But unique to the solid-state market is the insane demand for flash-memory chips - not just for SSD's - but in digital cameras, iPods, MP3 players and ever more intelligent consumer electronic devices. Apple's demand for flash chips for the iPod and iPhone alone is staggering, and has directly influenced rather STEADY flash prices thru all of 2009. SSD drives - in spite of increasing competition, much higher production and efficiencies of scale have oddly kept SSD prices FIRM throughout the year. But at least performance has made significant strides as cost has held steady. Early next year CES - The Consumer Electronics Show will give a good indication of SSD disk products in the pipeline that will shape where storage is headed.