Trend Markers Added to Pricing

TL;DR

SSD prices are up 5-10% and expected to keep rising through early 2026. If you're planning a build or upgrade soon, Black Friday and holiday sales are your best bet. Don't wait for prices to drop naturally—it probably won't happen any time soon.

What Those Arrows Mean

You'll notice arrows next to some SSD prices:

• ↑ Arrow pointing up = Price has increased

• ↓ Arrow pointing down = Price has decreased

Why Are SSD Prices Going Up Right Now?

AI is eating all the storage. Data centers running AI models need massive amounts of high-performance SSDs, and cloud companies are buying up supply faster than manufacturers can produce it. They're literally buying future production before it even exists.

Manufacturers are prioritizing the big money. Memory makers are focusing on advanced tech (DDR5, HBM) for AI and enterprise customers because it's more profitable. That means less production capacity for the consumer SSDs you want to buy.

Supply is intentionally limited. Major manufacturers learned their lesson from previous price crashes. They're keeping supply tight to maintain higher prices—it's basic supply and demand working against us.

Everything costs more to make. The memory chips, controllers, and components that go into SSDs all cost more due to chip shortage aftershocks and global demand.

Enterprise demand is insane. Business-grade SSDs have jumped 10%+ in recent quarters, while consumer drives are up 5-10%.

Why Do Prices Sometimes Drop?

Weak demand or oversupply. When people aren't buying or manufacturers make too many drives, prices fall. This happened hard in 2022-2023 with brutal price wars.

Better tech = cheaper production. As manufacturing improves and chip density increases, production costs drop over time.

Competition heats up. New brands or aggressive pricing on older models can trigger price cuts.

Current Market (Late 2025)

• Broad price increases: Both gaming/consumer SSDs and server drives are seeing 5-10% hikes

• High-capacity drives hit hardest: 2TB and 4TB models are seeing the steepest increases

• Holiday deals are weaker: The usual late-year price drops are barely happening because supply is tight and cloud providers are hoarding inventory

• Even older SSDs are expensive: Manufacturers are shifting production to newer, more profitable drives, so last-gen storage isn't the bargain it used to be

Should You Buy Now or Wait?

Buy Now If:

You need it within the next 6 months

• Building a new PC, upgrading your rig, or need more storage for content creation? Buy during the next good sale. Prices are more likely to go up than down.

You want a popular 1-4TB NVMe drive

• These mainstream capacities (think Samsung 990 Pro, WD_BLACK SN850X, Crucial P5 Plus) are exactly what's seeing 5-10%+ increases. Larger drives are getting hit even harder.

You see a Black Friday-level deal

• If a sale brings prices close to what they were earlier this year, jump on it. This might be your last "cheap" window before long-term increases kick in fully.

Wait If:

You don't need it for a year or more

• SSD pricing moves in multi-year cycles. After periods of high prices and tight supply, we usually get oversupply phases where prices crash. History suggests this could happen, but not until 2026-2027.

You're super flexible

• If you don't care about brand, speed, or exact capacity, you can wait for random deals on alternative models while the overall market trends upward. Just know you're playing the long game.

The price jump is extreme and your need is optional

• If a specific drive has spiked way beyond normal increases and you don't actually need it soon, you can wait and watch. Just don't expect prices to "come back down" soon.

Our Recommendation

Bottom line: if you can't wait, don't overpay. Use price comparison sites like this one to hunt down the best deals, because it could be months or years before oversupply brings prices back down.