SSD Price Hike in 2021 Due to Increasing Prices of Flash Memory
With the closure of Samsung's flash chip factory in Texas, controller shortage and a projected increase in demand for SSDs, their prices may soon rise.
Taking into account the current prices of consoles and GPUs, probably no one will be surprised by the news of increases in the case of other PC components. This time it concerns SSDs and the reasons are a bit different. The projected price increase is likely to be in the range of 3-8% and will take place in the second quarter of 2021. The increases are most likely to be affected by the temporary closure of Samsung's NAND flash memory factory in Austin, Texas. Not without significance is also the shortage of memory controllers - this situation has persisted for some time.
The situation is caused by the snowstorms that hit the area in February. Work in some large industrial plants was halted to divert energy to power residential neighborhoods. In addition to Samsung, NXP Semiconductors and Infineon Technologies from the chip and electronic components industries, among others, closed their factories. Shutting down of some production sources of flash memories may have a global impact, but it will be slightly delayed by the earlier overproduction caused by the high popularity of SSDs.
Therefore, increases are not expected until the second quarter. Demand for SSD is expected to continue to increase thanks to the push for remote working (which in turn is a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic). Laptops are generally bought for this purpose (they have built-in cameras and microphones), which now often just have SSDs.
