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I doubt they would willingly downgrade a working 64GB to a 4GB (and lose all the profit they could have made). That's just not a sane business practice in the f

I doubt they would willingly downgrade a working 64GB to a 4GB (and lose all the profit they could have made). That's just not a sane business practice in the flash industry. Keep in mind, even the major brands are re-branding flash they buy from other manufacturers. So e.g. maybe Sandisk manufactures the high-end 64GB cards themselves using an advanced process, but they purchase the 4GB cards from some shitty manufacturer using a decade-old process.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
> I doubt they would willingly downgrade a working 64GB to a 4GB (and lose all the profit they could have made). That's just not a sane business practice in the flash industry. It doesn't work like that. The model your parent comment is discussing goes like this: 1. Sandisk decides how much to charge for 64GB cards. 2. That price creates a certain level of demand for 64GB cards. 3. Sandisk manufactures many, many more 64GB cards than it can sell at the price it established in step (1). 4. Sandisk downgrades the surplus cards to lower capacity so it can still sell them without eating into 64GB card profits. What you appear to be missing is that if you have extra 64GB cards, you can't necessarily sell them without lowering the price of 64GB cards across the board, leaving you having sold more cards for less money. So that "profit they could have made" that you refer to is illusory.
- rasz_pl 13y ago
  It doesnt work like that either. Sandisk has a chip FAB. They can make whatever capacity chips they like. If by a freak accident they make more than they can sell (LOL, wont happen, flash market is constantly under supplied) they can just sell it to third parties (Kingston buys from them among many others). NO ONE disables good flash memory without reason.
  - e12e 13y ago
    > Sandisk has a chip FAB. They can make whatever capacity chips they like. But if production costs are (even almost) the same for a 4GB card and 64GB card, why would you ever produce a 4GB card? A 64GB card can be sold as 1 through 64GB -- rather than collect dust as a 64GB card if there is higher demand for cheaper cards. Now, I'm not certain that prices are similar, but it seems reasonable that if you already have quality control and precision enough to make 64 GB cards, it would be cheaper to just make one type of card, than different types.
    - rasz_pl 13y ago
      Yes, that sounds a lot smarter than cutting it to size. right?
  - thaumasiotes 13y ago
    > If by a freak accident they make more than they can sell (LOL, wont happen, flash market is constantly under supplied) If this were true, it would be hard to buy SD cards. But it isn't?
    - rasz_pl 13y ago
      SD cards is only fraction of the flash market. Apple alone was buying 1/4 of the worlds supply in 2007.
      - thaumasiotes 13y ago
        So? They're still part of it. If flash is being undersupplied, it should all be hard to get. That's what undersupply is.
        rasz_pl 13y ago
        And this is why SSD prices stopped falling. http://stsdb.com/uploads/pages/SDD_SSD-price-b.jpg http://stsdb.com/uploads/pages/SDD_SSD-price-b.jpg Now you see undersupply?
e12e 13y ago
I don't know. As far as I can tell, it's common to sell downgraded parts at lower price points, just to be able to compete at those price points as well. In theory they could've just dropped the price for 64GB cards, and killed all cards with less capacity -- that would at least have made more (apparent to consumers) sense than sell all cards at the same (cost+margin) price. I speculate that as manufacturing processes have gotten better, several segments of the industry simply continue to follow the old pattern of lower performance/lower price (GBs of flash, frequency of processors) from processes that did produce "quantifiable" low yields (eg: disabled core that didn't pass q/a, unreliable flash etc). As for re-enabling flash on lower capacity cards, I remember seeing a reference to some people being able to flash/reprogram/reconfigure SSD drives for higher capacity -- not sure about sdcards. Also not sure if that was just to alter the reported capacity, or actually enabled more flash on the drive -- I can't find the article right now. Given stuff like: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554 It doesn't seem too far fetched that it's possible.

thaumasiotes 13y ago

> I doubt they would willingly downgrade a working 64GB to a 4GB (and lose all the profit they could have made). That's just not a sane business practice in the flash industry. It doesn't work like that. The model your parent comment is discussing goes like this: 1. Sandisk decides how much to charge for 64GB cards. 2. That price creates a certain level of demand for 64GB cards. 3. Sandisk manufactures many, many more 64GB cards than it can sell at the price it established in step (1). 4. Sandisk downgrades the surplus cards to lower capacity so it can still sell them without eating into 64GB card profits. What you appear to be missing is that if you have extra 64GB cards, you can't necessarily sell them without lowering the price of 64GB cards across the board, leaving you having sold more cards for less money. So that "profit they could have made" that you refer to is illusory.

rasz_pl 13y ago
It doesnt work like that either. Sandisk has a chip FAB. They can make whatever capacity chips they like. If by a freak accident they make more than they can sell (LOL, wont happen, flash market is constantly under supplied) they can just sell it to third parties (Kingston buys from them among many others). NO ONE disables good flash memory without reason.
- e12e 13y ago
  > Sandisk has a chip FAB. They can make whatever capacity chips they like. But if production costs are (even almost) the same for a 4GB card and 64GB card, why would you ever produce a 4GB card? A 64GB card can be sold as 1 through 64GB -- rather than collect dust as a 64GB card if there is higher demand for cheaper cards. Now, I'm not certain that prices are similar, but it seems reasonable that if you already have quality control and precision enough to make 64 GB cards, it would be cheaper to just make one type of card, than different types.
  - rasz_pl 13y ago
    Yes, that sounds a lot smarter than cutting it to size. right?
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > If by a freak accident they make more than they can sell (LOL, wont happen, flash market is constantly under supplied) If this were true, it would be hard to buy SD cards. But it isn't?
  - rasz_pl 13y ago
    SD cards is only fraction of the flash market. Apple alone was buying 1/4 of the worlds supply in 2007.
    - thaumasiotes 13y ago
      So? They're still part of it. If flash is being undersupplied, it should all be hard to get. That's what undersupply is.
      - rasz_pl 13y ago
        And this is why SSD prices stopped falling. http://stsdb.com/uploads/pages/SDD_SSD-price-b.jpg http://stsdb.com/uploads/pages/SDD_SSD-price-b.jpg Now you see undersupply?

e12e 13y ago

I don't know. As far as I can tell, it's common to sell downgraded parts at lower price points, just to be able to compete at those price points as well. In theory they could've just dropped the price for 64GB cards, and killed all cards with less capacity -- that would at least have made more (apparent to consumers) sense than sell all cards at the same (cost+margin) price. I speculate that as manufacturing processes have gotten better, several segments of the industry simply continue to follow the old pattern of lower performance/lower price (GBs of flash, frequency of processors) from processes that did produce "quantifiable" low yields (eg: disabled core that didn't pass q/a, unreliable flash etc). As for re-enabling flash on lower capacity cards, I remember seeing a reference to some people being able to flash/reprogram/reconfigure SSD drives for higher capacity -- not sure about sdcards. Also not sure if that was just to alter the reported capacity, or actually enabled more flash on the drive -- I can't find the article right now. Given stuff like: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554 http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3554 It doesn't seem too far fetched that it's possible.