- Nelson Duann, SSD supply chain executive, has said: “The SSD retail market is almost gone”
- DDR5 RAM prices refuse to drop, although older memory modules are dropping in price, but only very slightly
- System memory is still hugely expensive, and the same goes for many SSDs, and even hard drives are getting more expensive now.
There is more news about the PC components crisis, in terms of SSDs (and how the retail market for drives is apparently disappearing) and also about RAM prices, which are showing signs of slowing down a bit in some respects, the notable problem being that this is not the case with DDR5.
Tom’s Hardware interviewed Nelson Duann, vice president of Silicon Motion, a major force in terms of SSD controller manufacturers, and the executive observed that: “The retail SSD market has almost disappeared.”
Duann explained: “The controllers we sell to module manufacturers now largely end up in SSDs that are shipped to PC OEMs. The reason is that OEMs can’t get enough NAND directly from memory manufacturers, so they are increasingly getting SSDs from module manufacturers.”
What Duann is saying is that with such huge demand for data centers these days, the retail market – that is, SSDs in boxes on shelves (virtual or physical) – is shrinking to the point of disappearance. Drives end up in data centers or PC manufacturers, so the selection available to consumers is shrinking considerably.
As for RAM, Notebookcheck.net highlighted a report from 3D Center examining component prices on the German retail market in June, including memory and SSDs.
The price of DDR5 RAM remained essentially level compared to June (they rose by 1%, which is almost nothing). With DDR4 and DDR3, prices actually dropped a bit, to the tune of just under 7%. With SSDs, prices practically remained stable, with a slight increase of just over 1%.
Analysis: harsh realities
In the German market, memory prices seem to have remained fairly stable over the past few months. Or, to look at it another way, system memory has remained at an exorbitant price throughout this year, still at a level that is 400% more expensive than before the RAM crisis hit.
SSD prices have also remained stable over the past few months, except that they rose in the first quarter of 2026, while RAM prices actually fell (from a high of 440%, believe it or not).
As always, keep in mind that this is the German market, and only a source of statistics, but at least it’s not bad news as some people have been predicting that RAM could become more expensive again as this year progresses. That could still happen, of course, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen yet.
Based on comments from Silicon Motion’s Duann, note that we could expect SSD prices to start rising again. If a prominent executive within the supply chain talks about the retail SSD market being “disappearing,” that should be cause for concern. It’s worth noting that hard drive prices are now rising too, according to 3D Center statistics: they’re 58% more expensive than a year ago, compared to 34% last month (and only up 14% by early 2026).
For now, we will continue to watch these prices and accept the reality that there is not much we can do about the situation except refuse to pay hugely inflated margins. Of course, there is a line where consumers will do exactly that (generally) that should in theory maintain a strict limit on RAM and SSD price increases.
In the meantime, given all this, if you can find a good deal on storage in the Prime Day sales next week, it could well be worth a try (especially in the case of larger SSDs or external hard drives).
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