SSD prices have quadrupled and hit the ceiling: AI servers are grabbing half of all NAND, consumers will have to endure another year. TrendForce's latest report: NAND Flash will remain in tight supply throughout 2026, with SSD prices already nearly quadrupling from their 2024 low point, and supply is expected to gradually catch up with demand starting in the second half of 2027. If you're a PC builder, you should be well aware of the SSD price surge.

💡 What You Will Learn

SSD prices have quadrupled and hit the ceiling: AI servers are grabbing half of all NAND, consumers will have to endure another year. TrendForce's latest report: NAND Flash will remain in tight supply

📜 Table of Contents

• AI Has Snatched Away Half of All NAND
• Manufacturers Are Expanding Capacity, But Not as Fast as You'd Think
• The Ironic Contrast: DRAM Will Suffer for Another 10 Years
• When Can You Buy Cheap SSDs?

SSD Prices Have Quadrupled and Hit the Ceiling: AI Servers Are Gobbling Up Half of All NAND, Consumers Must Endure One More Year

TrendForce's latest report: NAND Flash supply and demand remain tight throughout 2026, with SSD prices having nearly quadrupled from their 2024 lows. Supply is expected to gradually catch up with demand starting in the second half of 2027.

If you're a PC builder, you've probably felt the sting of SSD price hikes—1TB NVMe drives have jumped from ¥400 to ¥1500, and 2TB models are heading straight for ¥3000. With the same budget, last year you could build a machine with a 2TB SSD; this year, you're stuck with 1TB.

But here's the bad news: 2026 will see another full year of price increases.

The good news: the upward trend may peak in the second half of 2027—not because factories have ramped up capacity enough, but because consumers have finally stopped buying, and AI servers are nearly done devouring NAND.

This comes from TrendForce's latest report released on July 21. There's one particularly interesting data point in it—

AI Has Snatched Away Half of All NAND

TrendForce breaks down NAND Flash demand by application, and here's what 2026 looks like:

• Servers: 23.2% (mostly consumed by AI data centers)
• Mobile applications: 51.1% (smartphone storage expansion)
• Everything else goes to laptops, desktop SSDs, and consumer electronics

Servers have jumped from under 20% to 23%, and they're the main NAND devourer—training a single large model requires thousands of H100s, each equipped with enterprise-grade TLC or even QLC SSDs, with per-card capacity an order of magnitude higher than consumer-grade drives.

The 1TB SSD you're buying is getting more expensive not because SSD makers have disappeared, but because they're prioritizing capacity for AI servers—higher unit prices, more stable orders, and customers who don't haggle.

The consumer market being squeezed is essentially a priority problem.

Manufacturers Are Expanding Capacity, But Not as Fast as You'd Think

TrendForce's report names several key players:

• Korean: Samsung, SK Hynix
• American: Micron
• Japanese: Kioxia
• Chinese: YMTC

Their strategy is uniform—upgrade existing production lines + expand capacity. 3D NAND layer counts are stacking from 232 layers to 300+, and QLC is replacing TLC to spread out per-bit costs.

Chinese manufacturers are expanding more aggressively. YMTC is reportedly accelerating QLC volume production. Domestic SSDs already had a price advantage, and with upstream costs shifting downward, the Chinese market may see price softening before overseas markets do.

But all this expansion has a time lag—building fabs, installing equipment, and ramping up yields takes at least 18-24 months. So supply and demand remain tight throughout 2026, and the real inflection point won't come until the second half of 2027.

The Ironic Contrast: DRAM Will Suffer for Another 10 Years

If NAND is making you miserable, DRAM has even worse news.

ADATA's chairman publicly stated in late June—DRAM shortages will last at least another 10 years.

The reason is simple: DRAM makers expand capacity more slowly (process nodes like 1γ and 1β are harder to advance than NAND), and AI servers' demand for HBM is incomparable to NAND—HBM costs 5-8x more per unit than regular DDR5. Once DRAM makers shift capacity there, consumer-grade DDR4/DDR5 supply tightens even further.

According to ADATA's forecast, we can postpone the AI bubble discussion until 2040, but until then, ordinary consumers can basically say goodbye to cheap memory.

So NAND easing in H2 2027 counts as a "relatively good piece of news"—at least there's one type of storage you can wait to get cheap.

When Can You Buy Cheap SSDs?

Based on TrendForce's assessment:

• Full year 2026: Prices keep rising, PC building stays expensive
• H1 2027: Supply and demand approach balance, prices plateau
• H2 2027: Supply catches up with demand, prices begin to soften
• 2028: Prices may return to early 2024 levels (2TB SSDs around ¥800)

But DRAM is unlikely to be so optimistic. If ADATA's assessment holds, memory sticks won't be cheap for at least the next 5 years.

For PC builders, the strategy for the next two years:

1. Wait if you can—H2 2027 is the window for NAND
2. Switch to SSD, not HDD—even at higher prices, SSDs outperform HDDs by an entire generation
3. Don't upgrade memory unless you must—this DRAM cycle is a real grind
4. Keep an eye on used and pulled parts—enterprise SSDs retired from AI deployments are cheaper than consumer-grade (QLC has shorter lifespan but is cheap and plentiful)

Sources: TrendForce NAND Flash market report, July 21, 2026; ADATA chairman's public interview in late June.

TL;DR: SSDs will keep rising for another year, memory sticks may rise for a decade—PC builders, brace yourselves.