In a news post I made on Monday regarding OCZ’s latest 1.8-inch solid-state drives, I mentioned that where 2.5-inch models are concerned, the options are near-limitless. While I believe that to be true, there’s one thing that needs to be considered… where these SSD’s can be found. As enthusiasts, the etail and retail options for purchasing these drives is about as limitless as the available models, but for the regular consumer who’s uninformed? They might not even know they exist at all.
Even recently, there hasn’t been much, if any, availability at retail, and as a result, most consumers simply don’t understand that there’s an SSD option. But that’s looking to change with the help of Intel and Best Buy, as the former has announced that the retailer will begin selling X25-M and X25-V models on store shelves, as opposed to only online as it’s been for the past couple of months.
For now, only 40GB and 80GB models will be available on the store shelves, and we can assume that the former will be for the V model while the latter will be the M. Price-wise, Best Buy is somewhat competitive, selling the X25-M 80GB for $10 above Newegg pricing. Of course, if that’s the only difference that a customer will see if they walk into a real Best Buy store, then they’re likely getting ripped off far less than is typical of many of the components found at these brick and mortar stores.
The obvious reason for limited SSD exposure in stores like Best Buy has been due to pricing, but as it’s constantly improving, the time might be right, and I’m sure we could soon expect other companies to begin getting their product on store shelves as well. Intel in particular stands to see nice gains once its 25nm drives become available, as not only performance stands to improve, but pricing as well. The next year should prove very interesting where SSD’s are concerned, especially with regards to adoption.
It’s not all about pricing though. Intel believes it will have the performance crown back again with its new 3rd generation SSD controller due out in Q4. I believe the days of one company dominating all SSD recommendations are over and we’ll instead see a series of leapfrogging. Today SandForce is doing quite well and I’m working on the Crucial drives with updated firmware. By Q4 we’ll get to hit a giant reset button with new offerings from Indilinx, Intel, SandForce and Toshiba among others.