50% of notebooks will have SSDs by 2018

Solid state drive (SSD) adoption rates in notebooks are rising as the technology finally becomes more affordable, according to reports.

DRAMeXchange, a sub-division of TrendForce, has reported that in the third quarter of 2016, SSD prices have reached a point whereby OEMs are growing more likely to build them into notebooks.

While hard disk drives (HDDs) are, by and large, the standard for notebooks in 2016 it is looking likely that the situation will change radically over the coming years.

It is predicted that adoption rates in the notebook market will peak and then exceed 30 per cent in 2016, rising to 50 per cent in 2018.

In comparison to the previous quarter, the average price of multi-level cell-based (MLC-based) SSDs rose approximately 0.5 per cent whilst three-level cell-based (TLC-based) SSDs fell by approximately 1 per cent.

Alan Chen, senior manager of DRAMeXchange said: “The second quarter had an increase in work days and this allowed branded notebook vendors and their channels to significantly reduce their excess inventories.

“Furthermore, notebook demand was stimulated by new model releases. Global notebook shipments in the second quarter posted an 8.2 per cent sequential increase, while global shipments of SSDs for notebooks also grew 24 per cent over the prior quarter.”

Chen added: “Though there was a supply shortage and a sharp price hike for TLC Flash memory during May and June, SSD shipments to the worldwide channel market registered a 12 per cent sequential increase in the second quarter.

Increase in work days and manufacturers having sufficient inventories resulted in the above-expected quarterly shipment result.”

With the growing affordability of flash storage, more notebooks equipped with SSDs will see their way into stores going forward. In the coming years, this will be the standard that users expect of their notebooks as HDDs are phased out.