External SSD Drive
External SSD Drive
I was buying an external SSD drive today and found that the price is much lower than the price from last year. (Samsung T7 2TB for $140.) Is supply chain back to normal? If so, maybe I can go back to more bargain shopping (and not worry about things not available).
Re: External SSD Drive
I would not say normal but some of the component prices have dropped a lot from stupid highs.
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Re: External SSD Drive
Prices are falling, but I don't think we're back to normal
What Goes Up Must come down -- David Clayton-Thomas (1968), BST
Re: External SSD Drive
Thanks for the replies.
Re: External SSD Drive
Id check here: https://diskprices.com/?locale=us&condi ... ternal_ssdstudent wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:44 pm I was buying an external SSD drive today and found that the price is much lower than the price from last year. (Samsung T7 2TB for $140.) Is supply chain back to normal? If so, maybe I can go back to more bargain shopping (and not worry about things not available).
Depends on if you're set on the Samsung or not, but seems 2TB is going for around 55 bucks a TB for the WD. $110 total
Re: External SSD Drive
Thanks for the link.WOMoney wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:22 pmId check here: https://diskprices.com/?locale=us&condi ... ternal_ssdstudent wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:44 pm I was buying an external SSD drive today and found that the price is much lower than the price from last year. (Samsung T7 2TB for $140.) Is supply chain back to normal? If so, maybe I can go back to more bargain shopping (and not worry about things not available).
Depends on if you're set on the Samsung or not, but seems 2TB is going for around 55 bucks a TB for the WD. $110 total
Re: External SSD Drive
I paid $50 at Costco online for a 2TB Seagate external SATA drive and $85 for a SandiskExtreme 1TB in the warehouse recently.
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Re: External SSD Drive
This topic is now in the Personal Consumer Issues forum.
Re: External SSD Drive
Thanks for moving. Not getting enough sleep and posting in the wrong place.ClaycordJCA wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 1:24 am This topic is now in the Personal Consumer Issues forum.
Re: External SSD Drive
I haven't built a computer in a while but https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ was a good site where you could enter parts and see the history of prices.
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Re: External SSD Drive
Thanks. I also use camelcamelcamel to track price from Amazon.rich126 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:23 am I haven't built a computer in a while but https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ was a good site where you could enter parts and see the history of prices.
Re: External SSD Drive
SSD prices fell a lot in the past few months, supposedly because of excess inventory. I don't know if you should draw conclusions from that about the broader supply chain, but anyway my sense is the PC supply chain was not disrupted to the same extent as others, even during the height of the pandemic.
Re: External SSD Drive
Thanks for the comment. Thinking back, I think you are right. I bought a laptop during that time and it was a pretty good deal by normal standard.02nz wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:49 am SSD prices fell a lot in the past few months, supposedly because of excess inventory. I don't know if you should draw conclusions from that about the broader supply chain, but anyway my sense is the PC supply chain was not disrupted to the same extent as others, even during the height of the pandemic.
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Re: External SSD Drive
NAND flash and DRAM are essentially commodities and have price swings accordingly. Right now flash is exceedingly cheap and there is ample supply. However, it doesn't really have any bearing on automotive sensors or refrigerator controllers; the fabs to build one type of microcircuit are vastly different from another and capacity can't adjust for market needs. So, I would still expect to see issues on some products even when others have a glut.
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Re: External SSD Drive
I'm mulling over a new computer and possibly a new external SSD to go with it, and in my quick first-cut searches I found I was getting confused by SanDisk having acquired G-Technology, a provider of external rotating drives. So you can now have the SanDisk brand name on a rotating drive. Google, Amazon, etc. not at all clever about identifying SSD versus rotating drives correctly, and my searches for "SSD drives" often included rotating drives.
(My motivation for the external drive is that Time Machine and BackBlaze don't offer a path to quick recovery if the internal drive on a computer goes bad. So I like to make periodic bootable clones of my internal drive to sufficiently fast external drive.)
(My motivation for the external drive is that Time Machine and BackBlaze don't offer a path to quick recovery if the internal drive on a computer goes bad. So I like to make periodic bootable clones of my internal drive to sufficiently fast external drive.)
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Re: External SSD Drive
Better but not back to normal.
My anecdotal evidence is that we just submitted a warranty claim on our new Samsung disaster two weeks ago because the LEDs stopped working. They have no spare parts and are instead sending us an entire new dishwasher.
However TV prices have dropped like crazy.
My anecdotal evidence is that we just submitted a warranty claim on our new Samsung disaster two weeks ago because the LEDs stopped working. They have no spare parts and are instead sending us an entire new dishwasher.
However TV prices have dropped like crazy.
Re: External SSD Drive
Freud for message boards. This is perfect.
Re: External SSD Drive
Thanks for the info.dukeblue219 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:16 am NAND flash and DRAM are essentially commodities and have price swings accordingly. Right now flash is exceedingly cheap and there is ample supply. However, it doesn't really have any bearing on automotive sensors or refrigerator controllers; the fabs to build one type of microcircuit are vastly different from another and capacity can't adjust for market needs. So, I would still expect to see issues on some products even when others have a glut.
Re: External SSD Drive
Yes. One has to be careful. I bought the Samsung T7.nisiprius wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:21 am I'm mulling over a new computer and possibly a new external SSD to go with it, and in my quick first-cut searches I found I was getting confused by SanDisk having acquired G-Technology, a provider of external rotating drives. So you can now have the SanDisk brand name on a rotating drive. Google, Amazon, etc. not at all clever about identifying SSD versus rotating drives correctly, and my searches for "SSD drives" often included rotating drives.
(My motivation for the external drive is that Time Machine and BackBlaze don't offer a path to quick recovery if the internal drive on a computer goes bad. So I like to make periodic bootable clones of my internal drive to sufficiently fast external drive.)
Re: External SSD Drive
Thanks for the info.johnnyc321 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 9:23 am Better but not back to normal.
My anecdotal evidence is that we just submitted a warranty claim on our new Samsung disaster two weeks ago because the LEDs stopped working. They have no spare parts and are instead sending us an entire new dishwasher.
However TV prices have dropped like crazy.
Re: External SSD Drive
Some items. SSD prices have dropped a lot.
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Re: External SSD Drive
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Re: External SSD Drive
It seems like computer component prices never cease to give us reasons to marvel. Out of curiosity, I just looked up the first SSD I had purchased, which was a 256 GB Crucial MX series, for $112. Today a 2 TB Crucial MX series is $129.
8 times the capacity 8 years later for very close to the same price (actually cheaper if I adjust for inflation).
You can use Amazon's menus to drill down to external hard drives, but unfortunately, you can not filter from there to SSD's. And I've encountered numerous products miscategorized on Amazon over the years.
In contrast, with Newegg, for example, I can use the menus to drill down: Components > Storage Devices > SSDs > External SSDs. Then I select the filter for "Sold by Newegg" to avoid the unknown third party retailers they also act as a sales platform for, and if I want, I can also filter by size, brand, price, interface, etc.
And Newegg pricing is usually similar to or better than Amazon for computer components.
8 times the capacity 8 years later for very close to the same price (actually cheaper if I adjust for inflation).
I find using text searches to find products when there are numerous options to choose from an unreliable technique, for the reasons you have experienced and many others. If a retailer has a well-sorted website, I find it more reliable to sort through the menus or filters.
You can use Amazon's menus to drill down to external hard drives, but unfortunately, you can not filter from there to SSD's. And I've encountered numerous products miscategorized on Amazon over the years.
In contrast, with Newegg, for example, I can use the menus to drill down: Components > Storage Devices > SSDs > External SSDs. Then I select the filter for "Sold by Newegg" to avoid the unknown third party retailers they also act as a sales platform for, and if I want, I can also filter by size, brand, price, interface, etc.
And Newegg pricing is usually similar to or better than Amazon for computer components.
Re: External SSD Drive
For an external drive I was advised to get one utilizing a spindle rather than SS because recovery of data is easier in the case of a malfunction - I have a Western Digital 1 Terabyte - Model is My Passport Ultra .
Re: External SSD Drive
Normally you would always have at least two external drives. I've had conventional drives fail gradually, and been able to recovery data myself from them, and maybe that would be less likely with an SSD. However I've also had conventional drives fail completely without obvious warning, and if you mean for a data recovery service, recovery from any type of drive would likely be prohibitively expensive for most consumers.
Re: External SSD Drive
Somewhat off topic but bootable backups on Mac are getting more difficult. Take a look at this summary of bootable backups on Macs: https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/cloning-mac ... re-restorenisiprius wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:21 am I'm mulling over a new computer and possibly a new external SSD to go with it, and in my quick first-cut searches I found I was getting confused by SanDisk having acquired G-Technology, a provider of external rotating drives. So you can now have the SanDisk brand name on a rotating drive. Google, Amazon, etc. not at all clever about identifying SSD versus rotating drives correctly, and my searches for "SSD drives" often included rotating drives.
(My motivation for the external drive is that Time Machine and BackBlaze don't offer a path to quick recovery if the internal drive on a computer goes bad. So I like to make periodic bootable clones of my internal drive to sufficiently fast external drive.)