SSD Price Forecast: Q1 2026

If you’ve shopped for an SSD recently, you’ve likely experienced sticker shock. The 1TB NVMe drive that cost $66 in October 2025 now sells for $118 or more. The WD Black SN850X 8TB that was $700 six months ago? Now over $1,080 — when you can find it in stock at all.

This isn’t a temporary blip. We’re in the midst of what industry analysts are calling a “storage apocalypse” — a perfect storm of AI infrastructure demand, strategic production cuts, and a fundamental reallocation of manufacturing capacity that has sent consumer SSD prices into a spiral not seen in over a decade.

Here’s our complete forecast for Q1 2026 and beyond, based on the latest data from TrendForce, IDC, and statements from major NAND manufacturers.

The Current State of SSD Pricing

As of February 2026, consumer SSD prices have increased dramatically across all capacity tiers:

Price Changes Since Q4 2025:

These aren’t isolated examples. According to Kingston’s Datacenter SSD Business Manager Cameron Crandall, NAND wafer prices have increased by 246% since early 2025 — with 70% of that increase occurring in just the last 60 days of 2025.

The impact extends beyond NVMe drives. SATA SSDs, once the budget-friendly alternative, have seen similar increases. The Samsung 870 EVO 1TB, a perennial value recommendation, has climbed to nearly $140 — pricing that would have been unthinkable a year ago.

Why Prices Are Rising: The AI Factor

The root cause of this crisis isn’t a natural disaster or pandemic disruption — it’s a deliberate reallocation of the world’s silicon wafer capacity toward artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The numbers are staggering:

OpenAI’s “Stargate” AI infrastructure project alone has contracted for up to 900,000 DRAM wafers per month from Samsung and SK Hynix. While this primarily affects memory, the same companies manufacture NAND flash, and production capacity is fundamentally limited.

According to IDC’s December 2025 analysis, this isn’t just a cyclical shortage. It represents “a potentially permanent, strategic reallocation of the world’s silicon wafer capacity.” For decades, DRAM and NAND production for smartphones and PCs drove manufacturing priorities. That dynamic has now inverted.

The three largest memory manufacturers — Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology — have pivoted their limited cleanroom space and capital expenditure toward higher-margin enterprise components. Every wafer allocated to an HBM stack for an Nvidia GPU is a wafer denied to the consumer SSD market.

Key statements from industry executives:

• Phison CEO Khein-Seng Pua (November 2025): “Every NAND manufacturer told us 2026 sold out. All the capacity sold out.”
• SK Hynix DRAM Marketing Head Kim Kyu-hyun: “We’ve sold out our DRAM, NAND, and HBM capacity for next year.”
• Silicon Motion CEO: “We’re facing what has never happened before: HDD, DRAM, HBM, NAND… all in severe shortage in 2026.”

TrendForce Q1 2026 Forecast

TrendForce, the leading semiconductor market research firm, released their Q1 2026 projections in early January. The outlook is sobering:

NAND Flash Contract Prices: Expected to increase 33-38% quarter-over-quarter

Client SSD Prices: Expected to increase by at least 40% QoQ — the largest rise among all NAND flash product categories

Enterprise SSDs: Becoming the largest NAND flash application segment in 2026, with supply becoming tighter as suppliers prioritize profits

The consumer market is being squeezed from multiple directions. TrendForce notes that suppliers focused on profit maximization are actively shifting supply from client SSDs to data center SSDs. The availability of high-capacity, low-cost QLC products is “especially limited.”

What’s Happening to Supply

The supply situation is more complex than simple demand overwhelming production. Multiple factors are constraining availability:

1. Coordinated Production Discipline

Major NAND manufacturers have jointly scaled back production in the second half of 2025. According to Korean media reports, Samsung, SK Hynix, Kioxia, and Micron have all reduced output as part of what appears to be a coordinated push to lift prices that had hovered near cost since the 2023 oversupply period.

Samsung is reportedly weighing price hikes of 20-30% or more in negotiations for 2026 supply deals. SK Hynix has cut NAND output by around 10%, while Micron is maintaining conservative production levels.

2. Capacity Reallocation to HBM

High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) production for AI accelerators consumes approximately three times the wafer capacity of standard DRAM per gigabyte. As manufacturers race to supply Nvidia, AMD, and other AI chip makers, consumer-grade memory and storage production suffers.

Samsung plans to boost HBM production to around 250,000 wafers per month by the end of 2026 — a roughly 47% increase from current levels. This expansion comes at the expense of consumer NAND production.

3. Legacy Node Phase-Outs

Manufacturers are retiring older process nodes faster than anticipated. The 512GB TLC shortage is particularly acute, with prices rising over 65% month-over-month in late 2025 due to “faster phase-out of legacy nodes and sustained market demand.”

4. Samsung Exiting SATA SSD Production

In perhaps the most significant consumer-facing development, Samsung is reportedly halting SATA SSD production in 2026. Samsung SSDs account for roughly 20% of Amazon’s top-selling SSD listings, with a substantial portion being SATA drives. This exit removes an entire class of finished consumer products from one of the world’s largest suppliers.

When Will Prices Stabilize?

Based on current manufacturing timelines and capacity expansion plans, here’s our forecast:

Q1-Q2 2026: Acute Shortage Continues

Prices will continue rising through the first half of 2026. TrendForce’s 33-38% QoQ NAND price increase forecast and 40%+ client SSD increase suggest we haven’t reached the peak yet. New stock arriving at retailers will reflect higher component costs.

Q3-Q4 2026: Elevated Plateau

The rate of price increases may slow as the market adjusts to new pricing realities. However, meaningful relief is unlikely. As one industry analyst noted, “there is no scenario in which prices return to pre-shortage levels in 2026.”

2027: Potential Modest Relief

New production capacity won’t come online until late 2027 at the earliest:

• Micron’s new Idaho fab: Expected operational by 2027
• Samsung’s Pyeongtaek P5 facility: Expected operational by 2028
• SK Hynix’s Yongin Semiconductor Complex: First wafer factory targeted for 2027

However, even this new capacity may be absorbed by continued AI infrastructure expansion rather than consumer products.

2028 and Beyond: Uncertain

Some analysts predict the market could rebalance by 2028 if AI demand moderates and planned capacity comes online. However, this assumes the “AI bubble” doesn’t continue expanding — a significant assumption given current investment trajectories.

What This Means for Consumers

If you need storage now, buy it now.

This isn’t fear-mongering — it’s market reality. The drives available today at current prices represent inventory secured months ago. As that inventory depletes, replacement stock will carry higher costs.

Specific recommendations:

1. Don’t wait for sales. Traditional seasonal discounts are largely dead during shortages. Black Friday 2025 was overshadowed by component scarcity, and we expect the same pattern to continue.
2. Consider your actual needs. The 4TB or 8TB drive you planned to buy might not be practical at current prices. A 2TB drive now, with plans to add more storage later, may be a better strategy.
3. SATA SSDs are no longer the budget option. With Samsung exiting the market and prices converging with NVMe, the traditional “drop to SATA to save money” strategy no longer works.
4. HDDs for bulk storage are viable again. For media libraries, backups, and infrequently accessed data, hard drives offer dramatically better price-per-terabyte. However, enterprise HDD lead times have also ballooned to over 52 weeks for high-capacity models.
5. Pre-built systems may offer better value. Manufacturers like Dell and Lenovo secured components months ago at better prices. Pre-built PCs may actually offer better storage value than buying components separately.

Price Targets by Capacity

Based on current trajectories, here’s what we expect for retail pricing through mid-2026:

These are estimates based on current trends and assume no major market disruptions in either direction.

The Bigger Picture

This storage crisis is part of a broader realignment in the semiconductor industry. Memory — both DRAM and NAND — is increasingly being treated as a strategic resource rather than a commodity. The companies that control production (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) are prioritizing customers who can pay premium prices for guaranteed supply.

For individual consumers and small businesses, this means adjusting expectations. The era of steadily declining storage costs that defined the 2010s and early 2020s is paused, if not over. Storage planning now requires the same strategic thinking that enterprises have always applied to critical components.

The good news, such as it is: drives purchased today will hold their value better than they would have during the oversupply period. If you buy a 2TB NVMe now, you’re unlikely to see it discounted to half price six months later. The bad news: that’s because prices are going up, not down.

Our Recommendation

For StorageDiskPrices readers, our guidance is straightforward:

Buy what you need, when you need it. Waiting for prices to drop is likely to cost you more than acting now.

Use our price tracking tools to find the best current deals. While prices are elevated across the board, significant variations exist between retailers and specific models.

Consider the full storage ecosystem. A 1TB NVMe for your operating system and frequently-used applications, combined with a 4TB or 8TB HDD for bulk storage, may offer better total value than a single large SSD.

The storage market will eventually normalize. But “eventually” likely means 2028 or later. Plan accordingly.

Last updated: January 20, 2026. Prices and forecasts based on publicly available data from TrendForce, IDC, manufacturer statements, and retail tracking. Market conditions are changing rapidly; check current prices before purchasing.

Sources & Further Reading

• TrendForce Semiconductor Research — Q1 2026 NAND Flash Market Forecast
• IDC — Global Memory Shortage Crisis Analysis (December 2025)
• Wikipedia — 2024-2026 Global Memory Supply Shortage
• Tom’s Hardware — Industry coverage and pricing data
• PC Gamer — Retail price tracking