SSD prices in SA: what to expect

Are you planning on buying an SSD (Solid State Drive), but are waiting for the price to come down? Well, you may have to wait a bit longer.

WD Sales Manager for South Africa, Kalvin Subbadu, said SSD prices per gigabyte were still too high to compare them to traditional magnetic drives (HDD), and would be for the foreseeable future.

“[The price] will not come down anytime soon, perhaps in the distant future,” he said.

Subbadu also touched on the fluctuating rand/dollar exchange rate and how it affected prices.

“The US dollar is fluctuating so badly that one day you can pay R550 for a 500GB, and the next day you can pay R650. In dollar pricing we expect hard drive prices to drop this year, but not as fast as the market wants it to.”

Rectron’s Francois Rheeders said he does not see components’ dollar prices fluctuating drastically this year, apart from “new items” that always came at a premium.

“As you can imagine, local pricing does get affected pretty heavily when the exchange rate changes drastically. Even if pricing remains stable from vendor to distributor, the fact that we have to pay in US Dollars, which is the norm, immediately affects the pricing,” said Rheeders.

Rheeders was more confident of SSD prices coming during the course of the year.

“In terms of SSD, I do see the pricing coming down as the different manufacturers will be gunning for more market share. [SSD] is the single largest upgrade you can do to a machine to increase your performance immediately – other than changing up your whole system,” said Rheeders.

“There are already very cost-effective solutions available in the market on SSD,” he said.