NAND Flash memory crisis: why SSD prices are skyrocketing

The memory NAND Flash has become the new bottleneck of the technology industry. What not so long ago was a relatively cheap component for building a PC, upgrading a laptop, or buying a console, Today it is an increasingly scarce and expensive resourceespecially in Europe, where the effects of the crisis are already being strongly felt in retail prices.

After several years of oversupply and very tight margins, The major manufacturers have radically changed their strategy. SamsungSK Hynix and Kioxia, which control a large part of the world's NAND Flash memory supply, They are cutting production and diverting resources towards DRAM and high-value products linked to artificial intelligence (AI). The result is a market where the home user once again sees how 1 TB or 2 TB SSDs cease to be "bargains" and become almost luxury items.

NAND Flash giants hit the brakes: fewer wafers and a margin-oriented business

In South Korea, the figures coming from the industry are clear: Samsung reduces the number of wafers destined for NAND Flash from about 4,9 million to 4,68 million per yearThis represents a reduction of approximately 4,5%. Meanwhile, SK Hynix is ​​implementing an even more aggressive adjustment, reducing its wafer production from around 1,9 million to 1,7 million, a decrease of over 10%. These are not minor adjustments; we are talking about a structural restructuring in an already highly strained market.

This move does not seek to balance supply and demand, but something much more direct: Maximize the profitability of NAND FlashFor years, this segment has suffered from cycles of overproduction that drove prices down and hampered manufacturers' financial results. Now, with AI booming and DRAM (especially HBM, DDR5, and the latest generation GDDR) generating much higher margins, the business logic is to prioritize what brings in the most money per wafer.

According to industry sources cited in South Korean media, Samsung and SK Hynix are applying a genuine “supply discipline”They plan to cut NAND Flash production, defend prices, and allocate the bulk of their capital expenditures (CapEx) to improving and expanding their DRAM lines. It's not that they can't manufacture more NAND, but rather that it's not profitable for them to do so if it puts downward pressure on prices.

In this context, NAND's role as a volume business disappearsFor the current cycle, which some analysts predict will last until the end of the decade, the objective is clear: fewer chips, more tightly controlled contracts, and a much higher price per bit. The cost, inevitably, is ultimately borne by consumers and businesses that rely on affordable storage.

AI is devouring NAND Flash: servers, racks, and secure contracts

While manufacturers are slowing production, demand continues to grow. The key is that Artificial intelligence no longer just needs GPUs and DRAMIt also requires enormous volumes of fast flash storage to handle massive amounts of data and increasingly longer contexts.

Demand is not limited to large cloud providers; Companies deploying their own data centers and AI solutions are also signing long-term contracts to ensure a stable supply of NAND. This leaves increasingly less room for the traditional "spot" market, where many consumer SSD manufacturers, integrators, and small European suppliers source their products.

The situation is reinforced by cases such as that of Transcend, a storage manufacturer that has informed its customers of constant delays from suppliers such as Samsung and SanDisk, drastic reductions in their NAND chip allocations and no new shipments for months. In practice, the underlying message is that memory manufacturers are prioritizing large AI and data center customers, while the rest of the market is divided among them.

All of this paints a picture in which NAND Flash is going from being treated as a cheap commodity to becoming a strategic resource, reserved first and foremost for those who can sign multi-million dollar contracts and purchase commitments several years in advance.

Kioxia runs out of space: 2026 NAND production sold out and consumer market lagging behind

Joining the strategy of Samsung and SK Hynix is ​​Kioxia, another key player in the sector, which has confirmed that All of its NAND Flash production capacity for 2026 is already committed by contractsThere is no room for additional volume, nor any short-term intention to significantly expand capacity to release extra supply.

The Japanese company has not published specific figures for exabytes, wafers, or distribution between segments, but the message from its commercial management is unequivocal: Demand is skyrocketing across the entire memory sectorAnd large corporate and AI infrastructure customers have secured virtually all of the available volume for this year in advance.

This allocation system is no longer based on an open market where everyone buys what they need month by month, but on contracts for one or more years that guarantee prices and quantitiesProduction isn't launched to "see who will buy it," but rather leaves the factory with a pre-agreed destination and profit margin. The consumer market is relegated to a secondary role, receiving only the surplus or what doesn't fit into the larger agreements.

Industry sources explain that this It completely breaks the usual dynamic. which for years has allowed for steady price drops in SSDs for PCs, laptops, and home NAS devices. For the European user, this translates into fewer models, fewer aggressive offers, and greater volatility: low-margin products disappear first, and if they return, they do so at significantly higher prices.

Kioxia's own speech suggests that This situation could continue not only in 2026, but also in 2027.Until there is a serious adjustment between AI demand and global NAND manufacturing capacity, or manufacturers decide to invest in new flash-specific plants, the scenario will remain one of relative scarcity and high prices.

Price increases for SSDs and other devices: a blow for users in Spain and Europe

The consequences of this supply and demand dynamic are already being felt on the street. In the European market, data compiled by specialized portals shows that SSDs have experienced average price increases of over 70% since autumn 2025In some traditional formats, such as HDDs, the increase is also around 40-50%, driven by the general increase in the cost of storage.

In Spain, getting a 1 TB SSD for less than 100 euros has become practically mission impossible. Models that were recently priced below 60 euros have now moved into the 140-150 euro range.And the 2 TB units, which used to cost a little over 100 euros, now exceed 250 euros even in ranges that were previously considered "budget".

Popular brands in the entry-level segment, such as some Kioxia or Western Digital Blue series, They are no longer the cheap refuge they were a few months agoThe increase affects both NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD as with most SATA models, and also extends to storage for consoles, tablets and mobiles, where eMMC and UFS memory share the same NAND Flash base.

Forecasts from consultancies like TrendForce suggest that The first quarter of 2026 could see contract price increases of between 33% and 38%. across all NAND Flash categories, with increases exceeding 40% for consumer-oriented SSDs. In practice, this means that, if the trend continues, it wouldn't be unreasonable to see basic 1TB drives approaching or exceeding €200, and 2TB drives entering the €350-€400 range.

This price increase doesn't just affect PC enthusiasts. Entry-level laptops are starting to cut back on the capacity of their SSDs To avoid driving up the final price, home NAS setups are forced to adjust expansion plans, and many users are postponing purchases or looking for special offers, assuming that the market will not return to the lows of a few years ago in the short term.

Consumer vs. business: Cheap NAND is no longer a priority

In this new scenario, The low-margin segments are the ones that fare the worstWhen production capacity is limited and manufacturers can choose who to serve first, cheap SSDs for general consumption lose appeal compared to contracts with large corporate accounts.

Memory manufacturers are implementing a clear policy of “supply discipline”: There's no point in increasing volume if it drives prices down.Instead, they optimize their most advanced nodes, add more 3D NAND layers, and improve density per chip to meet existing commitments with better internal cost, without that necessarily translating into cheaper products for the end user.

Added to this is the competition from Chinese players such as YMTC, which It puts downward pressure on some price segments.In response, companies like Samsung and SK Hynix are reducing their exposure in the low-end mobile, PC, and laptop market, and focusing on server, enterprise, and AI application solutions, where margins are much more lucrative.

In practice, the consumer market ends up "eating the leftovers": receives what is not previously allocated to key contractsPrices already reflect this new context of controlled scarcity. This explains why aggressive SSD promotions are short-lived, why certain models disappear without a direct replacement, and why 4 TB or 8 TB drives are once again reserved for users willing to pay a considerable premium.

For European hardware manufacturers and local retailers, this implies significant volatility: Delayed orders, reduced quotas, and waiting lists for certain capacitiesMany choose to secure stock further in advance than usual or diversify suppliers, although that does not guarantee escaping the general price increase.

Next-generation NAND technology: more bits per cell, more layers, and greater energy efficiency

While all this is happening on the commercial front, the technical evolution of NAND Flash continues. SK Hynix, for example, has presented advances in 5-bit-per-cell NAND (PLC) and even denser solutions based on Multi-Site Cells (MSC)which in theory would allow for up to 6 bits per cell (Hexa-Level Cells). The goal is clear: to increase capacity per chip and reduce the internal cost per bit produced.

The transition from TLC (3 bits) to QLC (4 bits) and to PLC (5 bits) This is especially relevant for high-capacity SSDs intended for data centers.However, these changes bring significant challenges: more complex processes, smaller margins of error, and, in the early stages, lower yields that reduce the number of fully functional chips per wafer.

In parallel, SK Hynix is ​​working on technologies such as 3D FeNAND (ferroelectric NAND)which promises significant performance-per-watt improvements. The company claims increases of up to 20 times in operations per second (TOPS) and more than 7 times in efficiency (TOPS/W) compared to previous generations of 3D FeNAND, and enormous differences when compared to older 2D arrays.

Another advance is the adoption of techniques such as Charge-Trap-Nitride-Isolation (CTI)These technologies are designed to better distribute voltage within each cell, improve data retention, and accelerate read times. According to SK Hynix, this technology is already production-ready, paving the way for future generations of NAND flash memory with greater reliability and improved energy efficiency.

The problem for the average user is that These innovations do not immediately translate into cheaper productsIn a scenario of restricted supply and demand driven by AI, new processes are first used to fulfill high-value contracts, and only later do they reach the consumer market en masse, if margins allow it.

Outlook for 2026 and beyond: A NAND Flash market under pressure

Everything points to the fact that The tension in the NAND Flash supply chain is not going to be resolved in the short termAnalysts agree that 2026 will be a complicated yearWith rising prices and limited availability in several segments, they do not rule out that the situation could continue until 2027 or even 2028 depending on how the demand for AI evolves and how quickly global manufacturing capacity expands.

The continued rise of increasingly complex AI workloads, which handle enormous volumes of data and require rapid access to historical information, will continue to drive the need for advanced storage solutionsThis forces manufacturers to simultaneously invest in more plants, new processing nodes, and more sophisticated memory architectures—moves that take years to materialize.

Meanwhile, on a practical level, The general recommendation from many experts is to avoid impulsive SSD purchases.If there's no urgent need, it might be wise to wait for special offers or periods when inventory adjustments lead to more reasonable discounts. When a purchase is unavoidable, the strategy is to opt for the minimum quantity truly needed to minimize the financial impact.

For companies and system administrators in Spain and the rest of Europe, the challenge lies in plan storage expansions further in advanceDiversify suppliers where possible and consider high price scenarios for several years. The era of cheap and abundant SSDs, at least during this cycle marked by AI and supply discipline, seems to be over.

With a market dominated by a few manufacturers who have chosen to prioritize profitability, a constantly growing demand for AI, and a production capacity that is not expanding at the same rate, NAND Flash memory is consolidating itself as a strategic and expensive resourceFrom assembling a home PC in Spain to large European data centers, all players are forced to rethink their purchases and live with a scenario in which storage is no longer taken for granted or cheap.