In view of continual drops in SSD prices, notebook vendors are more willing to adopt SSD/HDD hybrid storage devices for business-use models in 2015, with the proportion of hybrid business-use notebooks expected to increase from about 10% currently to 20%, according to Taiwan-based notebook supply chain makers.

Prices for a 128GB SSD are expected to drop to US$60 in the first quarter of 2015, equal to current quotes for a 1TB HDD, the sources said. As price competition among notebook vendors is already intense and adoption of only SSDs is considerably costly, vendors are expected to mostly adopt SSD/HDD hybrid solutions, such as combination of a 128GB SSD and a 500GB HDD, the sources indicated.

SSD/HDD hybrid solutions are mainly seen in business-use notebooks because they are more expensive than consumer models, the sources said. In addition to cost, increasing availability of free cloud computing-based storage services is worth notebook vendors' consideration, the sources indicated.