Storage analyst Jim Handy expects price per GB of SSDs will be around $0.75 per GB this year, however supply shortages might drive up the price. As differentiation in the SSD market is currently nearly non-existent, most SSD brands compete on price. SSDs use NAND flash memory which is also used in smartphones and tablets. Shortage of NAND will drive up prices of SSDs.
While NAND flash memory prices were declining during last year, they were stabilized in September 2013. A fire at South Korean memory giant SK Hynix destroyed a fair share of DRAM memory production capacity which caused a shortage in DRAM supply. Due to that, some manufacturers decided to switch from NAND to DRAM manufacturing.
With less NAND production capacity available, pricing stabilized. Also the large amount of mobile phones and tablets sold (like the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S4) helped to stabilize the price of NAND memory.
With the obvious benefits of SSDs over HDDs (speed, power consumption) and popularity of smartphones and tablets, the demand for NAND will remain high. The question will be, will manufacturers successfully find ways to cut costs and will they allocate enough capacity to meet the demand? Or will they artificially keep prices high by only providing a tight supply of NAND to the market...
