Could memory sticks and SSD prices increase this year? The industry has faced major shortage issues over the past few years, primarily due to the pandemic and an increase in demand. Recent news now suggests that SSDs could go up in price due to a contamination issue at two large manufacturing facilities.
What Are SSDs?
Solid-state drives (SSD) are the modern generation of storage devices, used within computers and desktop PCs. Using a flash-based memory which is faster than a traditional hard disk, SSDs are a great way to improve the speed of your PC. Solid-state drives use a memory chip called NAND flash memory which requires no moving parts and almost instant access times. Perfect for companies dealing with large amounts of data, SSDs provide rapid access times and file transfer speeds.
What Could Cause The Price Surge?
Recent material contamination at two large NAND flash production facilities severely damaged 6.5 billion gigabytes worth of product. Unfortunately, this incident is likely to affect the supply of SSD drives and is a huge blow to the SSD market. As well as the pandemic causing the prices to potentially increase by around 5 to 10% in the upcoming months. The contamination occurred on Western Digital’s production line, these production lines were responsible for the manufacturing of NAND flash memory.
This is bad news for users looking to purchase solid-state drives, as the current price is already high. Before the material contamination occurred, SSD prices were set to fall by around 10% due to an oversupply. Kioxia and Western Digital account for up to 30% of the NAND production for SSDs. The reduction in the availability of the drives will inevitably affect the PC industry too, as SSDs are one of the essential components. These price predictions are speculation for now, but due to the contamination issues in Japan and the pandemic, you should expect to see higher prices.
When Would Be The Best Time To Invest In A New SSD?
If you are considering buying a new server, PC or upgrading your current system build to include SSDs then we advise not delaying. . We know that Western Digital is committed to getting production times back on track. However, without a timescale, we do not know how long it could be until prices return to normal?
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