SSD prices are rising rapidly
SSD manufacturers have to pay up to 65 percent more for NAND chips. Prices in retail are already rising significantly.
(Image: heise medien)
Prices for many popular SSDs are currently rising sharply. While models with one terabyte cost less than 50 euros in the summer, they now cost at least 40 percent more – and the trend is rising. Those who want more speed with PCI Express 4.0 have to pay even more.
For high-end SSDs, the price increases are not quite as high in relative terms. However, the same phenomenon as with RAM is evident here: only individual retailers or just eBay or Amazon shops are offering the lowest prices. Some SSDs are still listed quite cheaply by Amazon itself, but with delivery dates several months away.
The reason for the price increases is the AI hype. Hyperscalers are buying storage devices for their data centers in addition to RAM. Also because hard drives are scarce, SSDs are coming into focus more and more.
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Manufacturers have to buy expensively
Phison CEO Khein-Seng Pua already said at the beginning of November that SSD manufacturers had to pay about 10.70 US dollars for a common 1-terabit chip at the time. According to him, the price was still 4.80 dollars in July. Phison sells SSD controllers but also designs entire SSDs for manufacturer customers.
Market observer Trendforce, which specializes in storage, reports that NAND flash contract prices rose by another 20 to 65 percent in November. 1-Tbit chips with TLC technology (Triple Level Cells, three bits per cell) are said to have increased by 20 percent, and smaller 512-Gbit types by up to 65 percent.
On the so-called spot market, 1-Tbit chips are already up to 14 dollars. Manufacturers who do not have longer-term supply contracts or cannot fully cover their demand through them buy here. They show where the journey might be heading with future supply contracts.
Eight Tbit chips are required for an SSD with one TByte of storage space. On the spot market, this would already cost almost 100 euros converted. In addition, there are the costs for a controller, the circuit board, and possibly a DRAM chip as cache.
(mma)
