We have watched SSD prices steadily decline over the course of the 2015. With some experts predicting that flash storage will reach price parity with spinning hard disk drives in the next few years, retailers and consumers are closely watching price per gigabyte value for the best storage deals on 6 Gbps SATA drives
In a February 2015 SSD price / GB comparison, the PNY Optima 240 GB SSD came in first at $0.34 per GB. Other low $ per GB models included the Sandisk Ultra II, OCZ ARC 100, Crucial MX100, and Kingston SSDNow V300 SSDs. We will see if that is still the case.
After sorting through the raw data, a few trends bubble to the top.
- The larger the drive the more value you get. This is nothing new.
- Drives 180 GB and smaller are not yet at the $.40 / GB mark quite yet. Some are close.
- There is good value to be had in 400-512 GB drive segment.
In terms of the kind of flash memory inexpensive drives use, MLC NAND still mostly dominates the list, and the vast majority of SSDs use it. However, a few TLC models show up relatively high in the rankings. Samsung’s ever-popular 3D V-NAND 850 EVO models were also in our list, but save for the 1 TB model, they fall just outside the top five in several segments.
See our solid-state drive buying guide to learn more about the different types of flash memory (TLC, V-NAND, MLC).
In terms of performance, read speeds for value drives range from 550 – 500 MBps and write speeds fall between 530 – 450 MBps. Some models do dip below 450 MBps write, but for those are uncommon exceptions. For the curious, the fastest drive on the list is the Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 240 GB SSD (MKNSSDCR240GB-G2), with 555 MBps / 535 MBps read / write.
We have segmented the drives by capacity, profiling the five best per-gigabyte values at each segment.
180 GB and Smaller
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 120 GB SSD
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $54.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.46 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 555 / 525 |
| Type | TLC |
| Price | $56.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.47 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 550 / 450 |
Kingston SSDNow V300 120 GB SSD
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $59.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.50 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 450 / 450 |
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $59.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.50 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 475 / 395 |
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $64.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.54 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 535 / 185 |
240 GB to 256 GB
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $84.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.34 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 535 / 370 |
Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 256 GB SSD
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $89.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.35 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 560 / 315 |
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 240 GB SSD
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $84.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.35 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 555 / 535 |
Mushkin Enhanced ECO2 240 GB SSD
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $87.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.37 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 550 / 530 |
Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240 GB SSD
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $87.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.37 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 450 / 450 |
400 GB to 512 GB
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $159.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.33 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 530 / 330 |
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $159.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.33 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 550 / 500 |
Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 512 GB SSD
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $174.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.34 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 560 / 460 |
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $169.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.34 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 535 / 450 |
| Type | TLC |
| Price | $179.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.37 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 550 / 530 |
960 GB – 1 TB
Mushkin Enhanced Reactor 1 TB SSD
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $339.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.34 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 560 / 460 |
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $329.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.34 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 535 / 450 |
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $349.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.35 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 535 / 450 |
| Type | MLC |
| Price | $359.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.37 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 550 / 530 |
| Type | 3D V-NAND |
| Price | $379.99 |
| Price / GB | $0.38 |
| Read / Write Speed (MBps) | 540 / 520 |
SSD prices reflect day of publication. All prices on NeweggBusiness.com are final.
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[…] though we have watched SSD pricing decline steadily for the past year. Currently, the most inexpensive SSDs hover around $0.30 per GB—a pretty good deal, but when HDD prices are something like $0.04 per GB […]