Despite the introduction of the increasingly-popular solid-state drive (SSD) technology, SSD sales have not exceeded that of HDDs, according to South African retailers and distributors.
“I don’t see HDD sales dropping as a result of increasing popularity on SSD at all” said Elaine Wang, Business Manager for storage at Rectron South Africa.
This notion resonated with Sahara, a popular electronics and computer distributor throughout South Africa. “Even with SSDs moving in, HDDs are still the most prominent in the market”, a Sahara rep said.
Hard drive manufacturers Kingston Technology also commented on the maintaining strength of HDDs in the market despite the introduction of SSDs. “HDD still offers good price per GB ratio, where SSD offers great performance at a slight price premium”, a Kingston rep said.
SSD (left) and HDD (right)
The continuing prominence of HDDs in the changing technology market is credited to the pricing of SSDs, which are still priced higher than HDDs.
“SSDs still command a price premium which is means that they’re not really being snapped up by the mainstream consumer at the moment” said Rectron’s Elaine Wang.
“Due to their pricing, the demand for SSDs is still lower than that of HDDs”, a Sahara rep echoed.
While HDDs have remained the leader in hard drive sales within local markets, retailers have experienced a gradual demand for SSDs.
Kingston Technology have seen an increase in interest with SSDs, and believe that sales will increase further as cheaper iterations are introduced.
“Yes we are seeing increased sales in SSD, coupled with more interest in retail. Once R999 for 128gb SSD is available to consumer, I believe sales will increase further”, said Kingston.
Competition is another key factor for the expected growth of the SSD market, as Rectron expressed: “the increase in competition and demand has driven pricing down, thereby further fuelling demand for solid state drives”.
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