Western Digital 128GB SiliconEdge Blue SSD – $199 Shipped!

As we all know, SSDs are expensive as heck. That hasn’t changed overnight, but the times are certainly a’ changing. At $1.55 per GB, Western Digital’s 128GB SSD hasn’t just broken the $200 barrier, it’s smashed it. As we observed in our review, this drive first launched at a whopping $3.2 a GB (~$400). Although that was the standard price for a high-performance SSD at the time, it was overpriced for the mid-range market targeted by the SiliconEdge Blue series SSD. As such, we recommended this drive only if the prices went down… way down. And today they have.

The SiliconEdge Blue 128GB is not a speed demon and it is not the highest-performing SSD, but as can be seen in any of our later SSD reviews, it performs very well for its JMicron pedigree. In fact the results clearly show Western Digital’s decision to scrap the JMicron firmware and develop its own proprietary firmware was the correct choice. Especially given how poorly JMicron’s own firmware performed later on in our testing with another brand’s SSD. Users shouldn’t have to worry about stuttering or other potential problems with Western Digital’s SiliconEdge Blue SSD.

One reason behind the sudden price drop has been NAND flash prices. Unlike hard drives, NAND flash is bought and sold on a commodity market and as such is subject to volatile pricing. Almost all of the cost of an SSD is taken up just by the NAND memory it uses. Current NAND prices have been trending downwards, and SSD prices are already reflecting this (such as a $320 120GB Vertex 2, which has dropped by $65 since its launch). Nonetheless Western Digital appears to have gone a bit overboard by dropping the price of the 128GB even further than market prices would suggest possible. The 64GB and 256GB SiliconEdge Blue SSD’s have not reflected similar price drops.

If you have been sitting on the fence waiting for prices to drop, this might be it. Last week the 128GB was priced at $220, and this week it has slipped even further to $199. As the cheapest SSD around at $1.55 per GB we have absolutely no qualms in recommending this SSD as a capable desktop or laptop drive. The SiliconEdge Blue’s performance is significantly well-above any entry-level SSD, yet even the cheapest of cheap 128GB SSD still costs $35 more as of this writing. With a three year warranty and respectable mid-range performance, a deal like this one will be very hard to beat.