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512GB SSD dips to price of single MacBook Air

While it's not exactly price deflation, consumers would only have to sacrifice one MacBook Air for a high-capacity solid-state drive. It used to be worse.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

To say that high-capacity solid-state drives are getting inexpensive may be a bit premature considering you could purchase an entire MacBook Air for the price of a high-capacity SSD. That said, it could be a lot worse.

Lexar Media, an arm of solid-state drive manufacturer Micron Technology, said today that Crucial-branded m4 SSDs are now available worldwide, coming in capacities of 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB.

The 512GB model is $999--the cost of a low-end 11.6-inch Air. Now, that may seem pricey but let's not forget the good old days when high-capacity SSDs were priced in the exosphere, costing several thousand dollars. And some still do. Check out this link for a OCZ Technology SSD.

Hmm...would I prefer a few top-of-the-line laptops or one high-performance SSD? Decisions, decisions.

The Crucial 512GB m4 has impressive specs: Micron Technology's 25-nanometer NAND flash design, Serial ATA 6 gigabit-per-second interface, and read speeds up to 415MB/second and write speeds up to 260MB/s. The drive is available in a 2.5-inch form factor.

Smaller capacity models are priced as follows: $129.99 for a 64GB SSD, $249.99 for 128GB, and $499.99 for 256GB.