The chatter about SSD prices going up has become a chorus of voices in recent times – and here’s another report chiming in, underlining the likelihood that solid-state drives will become more expensive soon enough.
German tech site Computerbase (via PC Gamer) highlighted a report from The Chosun Daily, a South Korean newspaper, claiming that Samsung has made a massive cut to production levels for its NAND chips.
Those are the modules which are the actual storage on-board SSDs, and production levels have supposedly been cut in half.
With a 50% drop in production, the inventory of chips from Samsung will obviously be a lot leaner going forward. This means SSD makers will pay more for that NAND, and naturally, pass those costs on to the consumer in drive prices.
Samsung is the biggest presence in the NAND market, representing some 30% of the total sales volume, so this could have wider impact, without a doubt.
On top of that, Computerbase observes that the second largest NAND producer, SK Hynix, has plans to follow in Samsung’s footsteps and cut production in a similar way. (We aren’t given any exact quantification in this case, though).
Analysis: Rocketing prices
So, is this bad news for consumers? Yes, clearly, with the caveat that we must take any individual report with a whole lot of seasoning.
The South Korean source may have crossed wires somewhere, or the mentioned 50% cut might be off the mark (even if pulling back production does indeed happen, maybe it won’t be to this extent).
What makes this seem more likely is that, as we mentioned at the outset, there’s a whole weight of rumors and predictions from analyst firms that SSD price hikes are coming.
Only last month we heard that higher capacity SSDs (2TB and 4TB models) are going to skyrocket – and that exact term was used by an industry insider in the report which was aired. This comes on top of a whole lot of previous spillage around SSDs getting pricier.
At this point, it’d be a surprise if the price of solid-state drives, particularly some of the best SSDs out there, didn’t increase substantially as 2024 rolls onwards. As with any market, there are peaks and troughs, and we can only hope that the pricing incline we appear to be ascending currently flattens out before too long, and hopefully turns in the other direction. It will eventually, of course – it’s just a question of timing, as always.
Whatever the case, if you’re looking to buy one of the best SSDs, it seems to be increasingly likely that the best move is to purchase now rather than wait.
