Since the November edition of our SSD guide, SSD prices have shifted downward a bit and several new value SSDs have hit the market. Some of the newest models are still priced at or near MSRP, but will probably drop down to competitive prices soon. The low-end segment is shifting to 15-16nm TLC that does no favors for performance or durability but does bring some improvements to price and power consumption. In the meantime, we're waiting for new 3D NAND and new PCIe SSD controllers to hit the market and really shake things up.
Many SSD manufacturers have been predicting that the 120-128GB class of SSDs will reach price parity with hard drives this year. If they do, it probably won't matter. As higher capacity 3D NAND rolls out and pushes price per GB down, 128GB drives face a dilemma: use the newer and more cost-effective flash while losing performance due to a reduction in the number of dies to spread operations across, or stick with lower capacity dies (made on an inferior process) to retain better performance through a larger number of chips. Samsung's new 750 EVO chooses the latter option by adopting 16nm planar TLC even as Samsung's third-generation 3D NAND is about to hit the market.
As always, the prices shown are merely a snapshot at the time of writing. We make no attempt to predict when or where the best discounts will be. Instead, this guide should be treated as a baseline against which deals can be compared. For drives not mentioned in this guide, our SSD Bench database can provide performance information and comparisons.
