Solid state drive sales stalled

Despite the promise and allure of solid state drives (SSD), penetration into the market still remains low.

DRAM Exchange, which tracks NAND flash memory, the use of SSD devices in the regular notebook market will only be a piffling 1%-1.5% during 2009, and will only amount to less than 10 percent penetration in the low cost sector.

The reason is price. In the first half of this year, prices of 16Gb and 32Gb NAND chips have soared while profit margins have declined.

DRAM Exchange claims that the ratio of SSDs used in notebooks and netbooks continues to decline, resulting in “sloppy overall SSD shipments”. SSD drives still cost over four times more than regular hard drives per GB, and there are also concerns about software and storage compatibility.

Windows 7 will have some support for SSD but it’s apparent that SSDs have been somewhat overhyped.