11 ms·

SSD Prices Skyrocket as NAND Shortage Deepens, HDD Shortage Looms

87 points by homero 10y ago

KON_Air 10y ago
How did 'a' in "as" end up being lower case in the title? Becuase if it was copy/pasted that's curious bug.
- dimino 10y ago
  Quite probably hand typed.
- unethical_ban 10y ago
  Prepositions are often lower-cased, even in titles.
- abrowne 10y ago
  Because title case https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Case_styles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Case_styles
- kbutler 10y ago
  There are various standards for capitalization of titles. Lowercase "as" seems compliant with the current AP recommendations: "Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters." http://writingexplained.org/ap-style/ap-style-composition-titles http://writingexplained.org/ap-style/ap-style-composition-ti... Could be a feature!
- coldtea 10y ago
  That's a very common Title Case format.
comboy 10y ago
Can somebody explain a NAND shortage to me? Because without understanding it, it sounds like "we are out of bits".
- lightbyte 10y ago
  It sounds like the demand sharply increased recently due to smartphones and other advancements while production stayed steady.
  - comboy 10y ago
    But back when we had shortage in HDD production a few years ago, it was because many companies used factory based near some catastrophe. Here it's "just" silicon, are there only so few fabs all over the world that are able to manufacture these?
    - ChrisArchitect 10y ago
      Right, it was the flooding in Thailand that knocked Western Digital offline etc....
    - commandar 10y ago
      Basically, yes. Fabs are hugely expensive and they can only pump out so many wafers. The article is saying that it looks like demand is outstripping the capacity of the fabs to increase supply.
      - comboy 10y ago
        Last one - so if a fab can produce wafers at say 14nm - is there something else that can be stopping it from producing 14nm NAND flash? I mean apart from the quality. I imagined fabs like 3d printers. I thought the toughest part is the design, and once you have it, there's now plenty of places where you can print it.
        kuschku 10y ago
        > is there something else that can be stopping it from producing 14nm NAND flash? I mean apart from the quality. Well, you'd need the machines for that – there’s only a handful of companies able to build the EUV lithographic machines for that, most of them small German companies with a few dozen to hundred employees. And they can’t just increase production.
sounds 10y ago
I'm just not seeing it: http://camelcamelcamel.com/Corsair-Flash-Voyager-Slider-256GB/product/B00H06LM0O?active=price_amazon&context=similar http://camelcamelcamel.com/Corsair-Flash-Voyager-Slider-256G... http://camelcamelcamel.com/Patriot-512GB-Supersonic-Magnum-PEF512GSMN2USB/product/B01A6YDZ3I http://camelcamelcamel.com/Patriot-512GB-Supersonic-Magnum-P... The article claims consumer USB storage should be the first to suffer the price increases, but a quick plot of amazon prices shows the opposite, if anything: prices steadily decreasing. I guess I should check back in January and see if the prices rose?
- lightbyte 10y ago
  The article says >We began reporting on the first signs of the looming NAND shortage all the way back in May For your first link, May is when the flashdrive was at its lowest point followed by the price jumping up from ~$70 to ~$100.
l3m0ndr0p 10y ago
Maybe this is an artificial shortage. Because it is getting cheaper to manufacture these products now. Maybe something new coming out & we need to pay for it, at least the R&D.
Filligree 10y ago
The article claims that SMR drives -- Shingled Magnetic Recording -- is slower than normal HDDs. The truth is different. Unless you're unlucky enough to have a drive without a flash write buffer, SMR drives manage similar read rates to normal disks while having vastly higher write rates. For a while, that is; once the write buffer is full, it'll drop through the floor. SMR is bad for RAID, and it's bad for very high throughput writes, but a well-made disk may actually be faster than the traditional kind for normal users while having higher capacity. See Samsung's archive disks for a nice example. You may now ask yourself what's the point, when flash is even faster. Anyone with enough data that it won't fit on flash should probably use RAID of some kind. And there's something to that... But they won't, and you know it, so they might as well have the capacity.
kbutler 10y ago
So it's good I got that black friday deal?
Animats 10y ago
OK, up 6%. That's not "skyrocketing". If 3D storage isn't working, why this HN article today?[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13107550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13107550
- wtallis 10y ago
  3D NAND is struggling, but it's not a complete failure. Intel/Micron 3D TLC NAND is available in volume at a great price but it's slower than Samsung's 3D TLC. Micron still hasn't shipped any 3D MLC. Samsung's 48-layer 3D NAND performs well but supply is still pretty tight and some product lines are close to a year overdue for upgrading from their 32-layer 3D NAND. Toshiba/SanDisk(Western Digital) 3D NAND is being used in iPhones but is not yet sold in SSDs; it's not clear if this is due to raw supply limitations or if they're having trouble with performance or endurance. SK Hynix has been shipping an insignificant amount of 3D MLC with sub-par density, but no 3D TLC yet. Everybody has promises for a future of scaling up the layer count of 3D NAND to deliver big improvements in price per GB. But they're not offering much to reassure us that those newer designs will be free from the issues that have been holding back this year's planned advances.
ksec 10y ago
There were never enough NAND capacity for SSD to replace HDD. And not likely until 2020 or later. And with all the NAND manufacture consolidation you will expect NAND prices to raise all the way to 2018. Samsung, Toshiba, Sandisk/WD, Hynix combine have more then 90% market shares. i.e They pretty much control the market price. Things will only get better once the Chinese have their Fabs up in 2018. They have poured 10s of billions in. These capital intensive business suit them well when they have no idea where to put their money.

87 points by homero 10y ago

KON_Air 10y ago

How did 'a' in "as" end up being lower case in the title? Becuase if it was copy/pasted that's curious bug.

dimino 10y ago
Quite probably hand typed.
unethical_ban 10y ago
Prepositions are often lower-cased, even in titles.
abrowne 10y ago
Because title case https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Case_styles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Case_styles
kbutler 10y ago
There are various standards for capitalization of titles. Lowercase "as" seems compliant with the current AP recommendations: "Capitalize the principal words, including prepositions and conjunctions of four or more letters." http://writingexplained.org/ap-style/ap-style-composition-titles http://writingexplained.org/ap-style/ap-style-composition-ti... Could be a feature!
coldtea 10y ago
That's a very common Title Case format.

comboy 10y ago

Can somebody explain a NAND shortage to me? Because without understanding it, it sounds like "we are out of bits".

lightbyte 10y ago
It sounds like the demand sharply increased recently due to smartphones and other advancements while production stayed steady.
- comboy 10y ago
  But back when we had shortage in HDD production a few years ago, it was because many companies used factory based near some catastrophe. Here it's "just" silicon, are there only so few fabs all over the world that are able to manufacture these?
  - ChrisArchitect 10y ago
    Right, it was the flooding in Thailand that knocked Western Digital offline etc....
  - commandar 10y ago
    Basically, yes. Fabs are hugely expensive and they can only pump out so many wafers. The article is saying that it looks like demand is outstripping the capacity of the fabs to increase supply.
    - comboy 10y ago
      Last one - so if a fab can produce wafers at say 14nm - is there something else that can be stopping it from producing 14nm NAND flash? I mean apart from the quality. I imagined fabs like 3d printers. I thought the toughest part is the design, and once you have it, there's now plenty of places where you can print it.
      - kuschku 10y ago
        > is there something else that can be stopping it from producing 14nm NAND flash? I mean apart from the quality. Well, you'd need the machines for that – there’s only a handful of companies able to build the EUV lithographic machines for that, most of them small German companies with a few dozen to hundred employees. And they can’t just increase production.

sounds 10y ago

I'm just not seeing it: http://camelcamelcamel.com/Corsair-Flash-Voyager-Slider-256GB/product/B00H06LM0O?active=price_amazon&context=similar http://camelcamelcamel.com/Corsair-Flash-Voyager-Slider-256G... http://camelcamelcamel.com/Patriot-512GB-Supersonic-Magnum-PEF512GSMN2USB/product/B01A6YDZ3I http://camelcamelcamel.com/Patriot-512GB-Supersonic-Magnum-P... The article claims consumer USB storage should be the first to suffer the price increases, but a quick plot of amazon prices shows the opposite, if anything: prices steadily decreasing. I guess I should check back in January and see if the prices rose?

lightbyte 10y ago
The article says >We began reporting on the first signs of the looming NAND shortage all the way back in May For your first link, May is when the flashdrive was at its lowest point followed by the price jumping up from ~$70 to ~$100.

l3m0ndr0p 10y ago

Maybe this is an artificial shortage. Because it is getting cheaper to manufacture these products now. Maybe something new coming out & we need to pay for it, at least the R&D.

Filligree 10y ago

The article claims that SMR drives -- Shingled Magnetic Recording -- is slower than normal HDDs. The truth is different. Unless you're unlucky enough to have a drive without a flash write buffer, SMR drives manage similar read rates to normal disks while having vastly higher write rates. For a while, that is; once the write buffer is full, it'll drop through the floor. SMR is bad for RAID, and it's bad for very high throughput writes, but a well-made disk may actually be faster than the traditional kind for normal users while having higher capacity. See Samsung's archive disks for a nice example. You may now ask yourself what's the point, when flash is even faster. Anyone with enough data that it won't fit on flash should probably use RAID of some kind. And there's something to that... But they won't, and you know it, so they might as well have the capacity.

kbutler 10y ago

So it's good I got that black friday deal?

Animats 10y ago

OK, up 6%. That's not "skyrocketing". If 3D storage isn't working, why this HN article today?[1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13107550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13107550

wtallis 10y ago
3D NAND is struggling, but it's not a complete failure. Intel/Micron 3D TLC NAND is available in volume at a great price but it's slower than Samsung's 3D TLC. Micron still hasn't shipped any 3D MLC. Samsung's 48-layer 3D NAND performs well but supply is still pretty tight and some product lines are close to a year overdue for upgrading from their 32-layer 3D NAND. Toshiba/SanDisk(Western Digital) 3D NAND is being used in iPhones but is not yet sold in SSDs; it's not clear if this is due to raw supply limitations or if they're having trouble with performance or endurance. SK Hynix has been shipping an insignificant amount of 3D MLC with sub-par density, but no 3D TLC yet. Everybody has promises for a future of scaling up the layer count of 3D NAND to deliver big improvements in price per GB. But they're not offering much to reassure us that those newer designs will be free from the issues that have been holding back this year's planned advances.

ksec 10y ago

There were never enough NAND capacity for SSD to replace HDD. And not likely until 2020 or later. And with all the NAND manufacture consolidation you will expect NAND prices to raise all the way to 2018. Samsung, Toshiba, Sandisk/WD, Hynix combine have more then 90% market shares. i.e They pretty much control the market price. Things will only get better once the Chinese have their Fabs up in 2018. They have poured 10s of billions in. These capital intensive business suit them well when they have no idea where to put their money.