Lastly, we have SSD prices, which saw a similar trend, almost doubling in cost compared to their prices last year in September. These numbers make mechanical storage look more enticing than ever because NAND is now 86.59% more expensive than it was five months ago, but it was only 74.12% hiked as of last month. That means, going from January to February 2026, we saw more than a 10% increase in and of itself.
The WD_BLACK SN850X 2TB experienced a major hike of 33.86% in just one month, going from $215.90 to $289 in Germany. Unfortunately, the same drive costs $400 in the States (shipped by Amazon, sold by a third-party vendor), but it used to be $500 around 30 days ago, so we've made some progress. To further put things into context, this SSD retailed for a mere $89.99 in July 2023.
Out of 12 total models listed in the chart below, 9 experienced some form of price surge while 3 became less expensive. The best price cut award goes to Samsung's 990 EVO Plus 1TB, which saw a 4.5% reduction, going from $150.90 to $143.99 over the course of a month. There are no offers available to buy this new on Amazon right now, but it did drop down to just $64 in August 2025 when we spotlighted it.
This is a pretty bleak outlook, all things considered. Sure, memory prices are finally stabilizing, but it's more of an overflow stoppage than a normalization. Storage devices continue to get costlier across the world, with many places experiencing serious shortages.
ComputerBase ended their excellent article with a graph that we've also attached below; it shows just how insane the RAMpocalypse has been over the course of the last few months. The SSD and HDD trends pale in comparison, but it's concerning that their demand is not plateauing. Many companies have already said their production lines are fully booked , so only time will tell how much worse all this can get.
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Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he\u2019s not working, you\u2019ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-17/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Hassam Nasir Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.
ezst036 Admin said: All thanks to the AI boom. Thanks that the AI boom is starting to make DRAM prices come down now. Reply
Stomx All high end WD or Seagate HDs on Amazon now are from resellers only. Reply
Stomx The HD, SSD and DRAM manufacturers buying new jets now. The sky is full of squares again. Reply
bmtphoenix How is this grim, unless you need to buy right now? Memory has mostly plataud except for a few SKUs. This means that HDD's and SSD's will also plateau soon. Unless the data center boom starts all over again, they already have a lot of what they would buy in huge amounts, so while they will still be buying, supply issues are going to start tapering, if it hasn't already. Once supply meets this lesser demand, memory and drive manufacturers will have to start competing again. Flush with cash, they'll feel comfortable conducting some fairly aggressive price wars, and that's when we'll see prices drop dramatically. Some said memory prices will continue to rise into late 2027 and early 2028. Since we're evening out somewhat now, prices will probably be much better by November or earlier. Reply
Hotrod2go This could be a temporary blip on the radar for price drops or at least stabilization in the market, still only time will tell. Reply
Captain Awesome This is probably a temporary price drop. Micron and SK Hynix have sold out everything for 2026. Samsung recently announced a conversion of a consumer memory factory into a server memory factory. And big tech is getting close to a trillion dollars in new capital expenditures. Reply
Jamminator A basic 2TB WD Blue SN5000 went from an all-time low of $64 and is now up to $399 from B&H and Newegg. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/new-report-shows-ram-prices-are-continuing-to-fall-in-germany-u-s-trends-less-certain-ssds-and-hdds-are-more-expensive-than-ever#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.