Analyst agency Trendforce has forecasted that the common promoting worth of NAND Flash, the essential constructing block of all SSD (Strong State Drives) and microSD playing cards will fall by as much as 15% throughout the present quarter. It has already been down by nearly 25% over the past quarter prompting the largest producers; Kioxia, Solidigm, Micron and WDC to slash manufacturing in an effort to scale back provide available in the market.

Weak demand within the client and enterprise SSD clients mixed with Samsung’s reluctance to maintain producing as a lot NAND as doable signifies that the worth drop we’ve seen over the previous 12 months throughout SSD and microSD merchandise will seemingly stick with it unabated with smaller capacities steadily phased out. 

Samsung is the biggest NAND Flash vendor and has already dedicated to investing closely in R&D in an effort to keep forward of rivals. SK Hynix and Micron introduced in 2022 that they might launch 238-layer and 232-layer merchandise respectively which – on paper – will dramatically deliver down the price of Terabyte for strong state drives.

For apparent causes, no vendor has but launched PLC (penta stage cell) NAND, the subsequent technological breakthrough which is able to allow even cheaper, excessive capability SSD. 

Information massacre by Christmas 2023?

The most cost effective 1TB microSD playing cards are presently promoting for round $75 at Amazon, a close to 50% worth drop in comparison with a 12 months in the past. Whereas we don’t count on costs to half, one other 30% drop by the top of the 12 months seems to be affordable, which might deliver the worth of a 1TB microSD card nearer to $50. 

This could have a knock on impact on smaller capacities (512GB, 256GB, 128GB) and we count on 64GB and 32GB microSD to be pushed out of the market altogether.

The identical applies for USB flash drives the place the most cost effective real 256GB fashions are presently promoting for round $10 with distributors resorting to multi-pack provides in an effort to entice clients with decrease capacities. The truth that many current laptops don’t have a Sort-A connector or a microSD card slot additionally dramatically reduces the scale of the full addressable market.

Essentially the most thrilling market stays that of SSD the place clients are having an absolute subject day as costs proceed happening. The most cost effective SSD per TB on the time of writing is the Leven JS600 ($74.99 for 1.92TB), an additional drop of round 30% over the subsequent 9 months will see it attain parity with smaller capability arduous disk drives just like the Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM008.

These low-cost fashions are 2.5-inch SATA storage gadgets and since they’re defacto geared up with a SATA connector, they need to quickly supplant exterior arduous drives with a capability of as much as 2TB as effectively. Two traits although that’s value allowing for: 2.5-inch drives are on the way in which out in addition to they’re being changed by M.2 PCIe drives.

Bigger capability arduous drives are secure for now nevertheless it’s solely a matter of time earlier than the subsequent tier (3TB, 4TB) are on the way in which out. A 4TB SSD from Leven retails for $180, nonetheless about twice the worth of a 4TB WD Passport arduous disk drive for instance.