iPad to feast on Flash...
...starving SSDs of storage
Doomsayers are predicting that Apple's iPad will hinder the adoption of SSDs in PCs.
The argument, made by unnamed sources cited by DigiTimes, goes something like this: the iPad will suck up supplies of Nand Flash chips through 2010, that will encourage suppliers to up the price of whatever is left over, limiting the storage technology's availability to SSD makers.
Cost is, of course, part of the problem, but another key limitation on SSD adoption is storage capacity, particularly when compared to what today's HDDs can deliver. No amount of iPad sales are going to change that.
Price and capacity concerns - too high, too low - will be addressed when 20nm Flash chips become readily available, the moles maintain, but that won't happen until 2011. By which time, mobile HDDs will be nudging past 1TB and desktop HDDs will be even more capacious still. ®
COMMENTS
Economies of scale
1. Why would anybody by an iPad? No really. Why? LCD picture frames are much cheaper in Curry's.
2. If iPads do suck in demand for SSD the price rise will only be in the short term; economies of scale will soon push prices back down again.
SSD will never become mainstream...
... until the price drops to below 10 pence per GB. When you have so much choice with large & cheap hard drives, with even many notebook drives running at 7200rpm, why would you spend a huge wedge of cash on an SSD with comparatively low capacity.
These days, with digital cameras taking 12+MP pics, and HD video, consumers need all the storage space they can get.
