Has anyone checked SSD prices lately?

[bcarlson78248]

I bought a Samsung T7 Shield 2 Gbyte external SSD last year in May and I paid $168US on Amazon. I checked last week and the same product is now $499!

I knew prices for some electronics are going up, but the SSD increase seems ridiculous. Spinning hard disks seem to be about the same price as before.

 

[clee01l]

I bought a Samsung T7 Shield 2 Gbyte external SSD last year in May and I paid $168US on Amazon. I checked last week and the same product is now $499!

I knew prices for some electronics are going up, but the SSD increase seems ridiculous. Spinning hard disks seem to be about the same price as before.

You can blame the demand for AI centers around the world.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Califdan]

You can blame the demand for AI centers around the world.

And, don't forget the tariffs that go up and down like an elevator. Rather than adjusting prices every time the tarrif changes, many companies just set their retail price based on a high tariff and let the tariffs go up and down under that ceiling. But, AI ceneters are probably the main culprit.

 

[clee01l]

And, don't forget the tariffs that go up and down like an elevator. Rather than adjusting prices every time the tarrif changes, many companies just set their retail price based on a high tariff and let the tariffs go up and down under that ceiling. But, AI ceneters are probably the main culprit.

Tariffs Add Cost, but Component Shortages Dictate Data Center Timelines
https://www.datacenterknowledge.com...onent-shortages-dictate-data-center-timelines

 

[Gnits]

I have enough fast SSD storage for the next year or two or potentially indefinitely.

I can manage that by archiving previous years images to my internal large spinning drive.. which is backed up to a second internal spinning drive , backed up in turn to NAS storage. I really only need ssd storage for my current years images.

I am actively monitoring developments in the hdd area. This article is an example of developments in that direction.

https://www.techspot.com/news/111943-toshiba-starts-shipping-smr-mamr-enterprise-hard-drives.html

I see my long term storage strategy is having a current external SSD and 3 large hdd drives. The ssd is for current years images images, hdd1 is previous years images, hdd2 is backup, hdd3 is a second backup drive.

My suspicion is that Ai is a factor, but every link in the supply chain is price gouging massively and the consumer / retail customer is at the end of the accumulated markups. Only a suspicion.. but I hope to avoid fishing in that pond for a while.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

I knew prices for some electronics are going up, but the SSD increase seems ridiculous. Spinning hard disks seem to be about the same price as before.

Hard drives are affected too. I looked up an order I placed for a Seagate large capacity hard drive in 2022. The price today for the same model is about 1.5 times higher.

SSD prices were on a constant downward trend until about a year ago, when there were some pretty good deals. Compared to hard drives, solid state memory is in much higher demand for AI data centers because it's so much faster, so the SSD prices I see today are 2 to 7 times higher than a year or two ago.

I also checked the prices of SD cards and slow USB flash drives. In every case, they now cost at least double what they did before.

Basically, it’s a general memory shortage. If you can call it “memory,” the price shot up, whether it’s RAM, a hard drive, a solid state drive, a camera card… I have enough drives for now, but I sure hope prices find their way back down before I need more storage or a drive fails.

 

[markstothard]

I've noticed the same pricing increase.

Owning an OWC Thunderbolt 5, 4 TB drive, which I purchased late in 2025 for a roundabout £450.

I now see that they're DOUBLE that price.

 

[clee01l]

I've noticed the same pricing increase.

Owning an OWC Thunderbolt 5, 4 TB drive, which I purchased late in 2025 for a roundabout £450.

I now see that they're DOUBLE that price.

There are three companies in the world that build DRAM which most SSDs use. Only one of those is a US company. Micron is building a new DRAM plant in the US but it won't be online before 2028.

 

[markstothard]

There are three companies in the world that build DRAM which most SSDs use. Only one of those is a US company. Micron is building a new DRAM plant in the US but it won't be online before 2028.

Thank you for that information.

 

[Zenon]

Well I guess my wait for external SSD's is going to be extended. I'm using spinners for file back ups which have served me well for over the years. I'm not sure how much difference it makes but I do most of my editing off the desktop and then I move those folders to the ED.

 

[clee01l]

Well I guess my wait for external SSD's is going to be extended. I'm using spinners for file back ups which have served me well for over the years. I'm not sure how much difference it makes but I do most of my editing off the desktop and then I move those folders to the ED.

My only SSDs are the ones that came with my Macs. HDDs have always been my preference since the largest SDD is 4TB and my working image inventory is 3.51TB. In 2024, I purchased a 128GB CF Express card through Amazon, I checked the price for the same card and it is almost double in price.

FWIW a bare 4TB HDD is currently $100-$150 USD and a 4TH SSD M.2 SSD 4TB GM7000 with DRAM cache NVMe 1.4 2280 is listed @ $730USD