The price of SSDs may be set to increase in the coming months as Samsung, one of the world’s largest producers of the NAND chips used in SSDs, has announced a 20% quarterly increase in the cost of NAND. The Samsung SSD price increase is double that which the company previously estimated, putting strain on the cost of consumer SSD production.
The change in NAND pricing hasn’t yet had a significant impact on the prices of the sort of drives seen in our best SSD for gaming list, but if such changes are to come we’d expect them to occur in the coming months. As such, if we do see some juicy Black Friday SSD deals, it will probably be the optimal time to grab a new drive.
The extent to which consumer SSD prices will rise is purely speculation at the moment but predictions have suggested we could see rises of between 8-13%. That would result in the likes of Samsung‘s own 990 Pro SSD rising from around $170 to around $183-$192. Those aren’t changes that are likely to completely blow your budget, but given the generally downward trend we’ve seen in SSD prices over the last year or so, it would be a shame to suddenly have to pay more.
If waiting for a Black Friday deal is too long to wait or you don’t want to risk prices rising significantly before then, our current pick of the best SSD is the Crucial T700. It offers blazing PCie 5 speeds for a not crazy price. Meanwhile, for a mid-range option, the Solidigm P44 Pro is the way to go as the PCIe 4 drive nicely balances performance with price. Or, for a truly budget option, the WD Blue SN550 is the way to go. For more see recommendations, check out our best SSD guide.
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