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SSDs: WTF?

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


In this video, we dive deep into why SSD prices are skyrocketing, and why we think they'll get worse in the near-term. Similar to RAM (DRAM) prices for system memory, SSDs are now plotting an actually worse price increase trajectory by time vs spot price, and we expect contract prices will trail. Currently, data centers and "AI" are driving the demand for SSDs to be deployed in server solutions worldwide, which reduces consumer demand. At the same time, some SSD NAND suppliers are reducing their production capacity despite high demand.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Why SSD Prices Are Skyrocketing
04:15 - SUPPORT OUR WORK
05:24 - Factors, Basics, and Methodology
07:47 - Spot Prices Surge toward 9x
11:13 - Completed Product Price Increases
16:53 - Hard Drive Prices
19:13 - NVIDIA's Vera Rubin Servers
20:48 - Reducing Flash Production
22:18 - Conclusion
  • (00:02) NAND flash prices (core SSD component) have exploded up to ~9× in 6 months, signaling a major supply shock similar to past RAM/GPU shortages.
  • (00:26)Main causes of rising SSD prices:
    • Massive data center demand
    • Hard drive shortages pushing buyers to SSDs
    • Manufacturers prioritizing higher-margin enterprise SSDs
    • Some companies intentionally restricting supply to protect profits
  • (01:12)Example price surge:
    • 512 Gbit TLC NAND: $2.70 → $23+ (~8.5× increase)
    • 2TB SSDs:
      • SATA: $150 → $350
      • NVMe: $190 → $450
  • (02:01)Supply crisis indicators:
    • Kioxia: "production is already sold out"
    • Western Digital: "sold out for 2026"
    • Valve: Steam Deck shortages due to storage supply
  • (02:37) Major manufacturers like Samsung Electronics and SK hynix are reducing NAND output, worsening shortages.
  • (03:04)AI is a huge driver:
    • NVIDIA server storage demand could grow from 2.8% → 9.3% of global NAND demand by 2027
    • AI data centers are consuming massive storage at unprecedented scale
  • (07:23) Unlike normal pricing cycles (which usually fall over time), SSD prices are rising abnormally, breaking historical trends due to sustained demand pressure.
  • (09:06) SSD component costs are rising faster than DDR5 RAM, with NAND seeing ~8.6× price multipliers, indicating worse underlying pressure than RAM markets.
  • (13:06)Consumer SSD prices are catching up:
    • NVMe SSDs: ~114% average increase in 4 months
    • SATA SSDs: ~76% increase
    • Prices lag behind components due to temporary inventory buffers
  • (18:10)Structural causes of the crisis:
    • AI data centers buying hundreds of thousands of SSDs quarterly
    • Hard drive shortages causing shift to flash storage
    • Enterprise demand crowding out consumers
  • (22:18)Key conclusion:
    • SSD price surge is not temporary
    • Likely to get worse before improving, following the same trajectory as RAM shortages
  • (23:29)Final takeaway:
    • A mix of AI demand + supply restrictions + possible coordinated production cuts is driving a long-term pricing crisis across storage markets.
 
Yep, the primary issue is AI data centers. I don't know how this will eventually stabilize or burst, but I'm hoping it happens soon. These insane consumer prices of RAM/SSDs/GPUs is pissing me off.
 
Wow.

Self-fart-sniffing Hippie Tech-Jesus had to do one of his patented faux investigations to learn this and come to his conclusions?

Hey SFSHTJ, this (the when, the why, and what is to come) is old news, gramps. but thanks anyway.
 
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Wow.

Self-fart-sniffing Hippie Tech-Jesus had to do one of his patented faux investigations to learn this and come to his conclusions?

Hey SFSHTJ, this (the when, the why, and what is to come) is old news, gramps. but thanks anyway.

What Is Going On American Horror Story GIF by AHS
 
Wow.

Self-fart-sniffing Hippie Tech-Jesus had to do one of his patented faux investigations to learn this and come to his conclusions?

Hey SFSHTJ, this (the when, the why, and what is to come) is old news, gramps. but thanks anyway.
What do you mean faux? It's full of useful and well-researched information, unlike your shitty post that contributes to nothing.
 
What do you mean faux? It's full of useful and well-researched information, unlike your shitty post that contributes to nothing.

Nothing to see here; probably just isn't used to / is averse to information that isn't otherwise fed to them in 30-second video reels.
 
I think this might be the absolute worst era to be a PC gamer. Nearly every vital component's price has skyrocketed, unless you're planning on building a turd and call it a gaming PC. At this point you're better off just buying an empty tower and pretend it's a PC. I hate it.

I was very lucky to have built my PC a few months before this clusterfuck, but the mere thought that all it takes is to have one of my RAMs fried to have my hobby put into a halt for the next three-four years is INSANE. The second I hear heavy rain and thunder, I immediately shut down my PC and turn off the plug switches in order to prevent the PSU or memory getting fried by a potential power outage.

I don't hate A.I., but I do hate how the market completely screwed all consumers in their pursuit of this A.I. lala land which will provide endless profits for companies, not waiting for the change to occur naturally. This is like a ten year old not waiting to grow up and pumping itself with growth hormones and steroids in order to become a man and a bodybuilder in a month.
 
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Yep, the primary issue is AI data centers. I don't know how this will eventually stabilize or burst, but I'm hoping it happens soon. These insane consumer prices of RAM/SSDs/GPUs is pissing me off.
You will know if they are going to take a turn for the worse much worse when Apple starts plans to buy a foundry (building their own takes too long)… heck… it could even be Intel or Global Foundries…

Apple doctrine under Cook has been to own / be independent for the critical components in their supply chain (see CPUs, GPUs, WiFi and now cellular communications chips, audio processors, etc…) at least in terms of design. If the prices of flash and memory could be a threat to their core business models they will push to own a fab to make their own RAM and SSDs/ Flash chips for themselves and they do have that money…
 
I know it sucks right now to see some prices skyrocketing, but it's all for a greater good.

Which is that most companies can use these triple digit AI monthly subs to fire many employees and save a lot of money
 
I'm very happy that I bought my Kingston KC3000 m2 SSD for the PS5 + 3 extra A400 SSDs for long term backup/media/documents storage 2-3 years ago.
The KC3000 cost over twice as much and the A400 prices are even crazier at almost 3x the price I paid for them.
 
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I'm sad that my amazon black friday order last year of a 2TB M2 SSD for my PS5 never got fulfilled.

Seems I will have to get by with my old SATA SSDs many years until they stop functioning.
 
Wow.

Self-fart-sniffing Hippie Tech-Jesus had to do one of his patented faux investigations to learn this and come to his conclusions?

Hey SFSHTJ, this (the when, the why, and what is to come) is old news, gramps. but thanks anyway.

What is wrong with you?
Do you suffer from some mental problem?
 
I'm stil running 32gigs a ram, a 2080 super, 1tb nvme and a Ryzen 5700x3d. Unless do a used video card upgrade, this system and dlss will hopefully get me through another few years till prices fall.
 
I'm checking occasionally price of SSDs on idealo

990 Pro, SN850X, Crucial p310 or t500.... Sometimes it drops significantly, but it last just for a day. Want to grab 2TB one

TJ2pDz6oCC8DzRY4.png
 
Wow.

Self-fart-sniffing Hippie Tech-Jesus had to do one of his patented faux investigations to learn this and come to his conclusions?

Hey SFSHTJ, this (the when, the why, and what is to come) is old news, gramps. but thanks anyway.

22 years old but still relevant:

20040319-umO0zG4o@2x.jpg
 
I'm stil running 32gigs a ram, a 2080 super, 1tb nvme and a Ryzen 5700x3d. Unless do a used video card upgrade, this system and dlss will hopefully get me through another few years till prices fall.
U gotta be really smart with dat lil ssd space there, rest of hardware i think 8gigs of vram on the gpu will be bottleneck there, ram/cpu u gonna be fine if u stick to 60fps, but defo by mid/end 2027 u gonna need(and i mean need) to upgrade gpu to either lowend(or midrange but who knows hows its all gonna be priced, likely lowend might even cost 400usd+, midrange 600-700usd streetprice)nvidia 60xx card or amd's rdna5 one, obviously depending on what they both offer. Absolutely dont go below 16gigs of vram and by then official officially ps6 specs( from credible leaks we already know it will likely be around 5080 bestcase scenario, maybe bit worse).

Look where ur 2080super stacks up now:
Barely above base ps5 gpu(11-12% above), vram pool wise not even that.
 
My build would last me 4 years comfortably. If things get way worse by then I will jump out. I don't think consoles will be any better because this affects everyone.
 
tried to warn people months ago without success
 
tried to warn people months ago without success
Someone is coming for you O onQ123


Here I Come Dancing GIF by WWE
 
I'm glad I upgraded to a 4TB Samsung 9100 Pro gen 5 nvme drive when I did. I really wish I hadn't sold my old slower 4TB drive afterwards though.
 
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Yep, dude as always does actual research and brings the receipts. "He is whining". WTF.

Anyways, situation has been shit with SSDs and getting worse. People keep focusing on the RAM but SSDs alongside increasing Wafer costs are going to keep dr
I kind of feel since Covid and with social media's short form content, people's critical thinking capability and attention span just went to shit.
 
I think this might be the absolute worst era to be a PC gamer. Nearly every vital component's price has skyrocketed, unless you're planning on building a turd and call it a gaming PC. At this point you're better off just buying an empty tower and pretend it's a PC. I hate it.

I was very lucky to have built my PC a few months before this clusterfuck, but the mere thought that all it takes is to have one of my RAMs fried to have my hobby put into a halt for the next three-four years is INSANE. The second I hear heavy rain and thunder, I immediately shut down my PC and turn off the plug switches in order to prevent the PSU or memory getting fried by a potential power outage.

I don't hate A.I., but I do hate how the market completely screwed all consumers in their pursuit of this A.I. lala land which will provide endless profits for companies, not waiting for the change to occur naturally. This is like a ten year old not waiting to grow up and pumping itself with growth hormones and steroids in order to become a man and a bodybuilder in a month.
Tell you you are a new PC gamer who didn't struggle during the two crypto booms where GPU were IMPOSSIBLE to get without telling you just jumped on the PC band wagon.

Price have gone up on RAM, storage, and GPUs. But everything else isn't selling so prices dropped on those. Don't max out storage and RAM and you can get a build for an extra $200-300. Once sanity returns you can increase your RAM and storage if you want. Just stick with 16GB of system RAM, and don't go over 1TB of storage for right now and ride it out if you need to get a PC right now.
 
Basically, all storages format are become expansive: HDDs (mainly now for NAS, cold data storage), SSDs (PC, conosle storage), SD (express) card (Camera storage, Switch 2 storage and game card) and e.t.c.

Also intel and AMD CPU may have a 10%~15% price rise, GPUs price has go up as supply decrease and vram price goes up
 
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Back in Jan 2024, I bought a 4TB Samsung 870 EVO SSD for $326.61 from Best Buy. That same drive is now $719.99.

I'm tempted to buy a 2TB M.2 2230 for my tablet. Right now I can buy one for about $300.
 
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