Once again, we return to a topic that is probably as popular in the PC world as artificial intelligence (and is close buddies with it): memory prices. TrendForce has released their outlook of how DRAM prices—that is, system memory and graphics memory—are expected to develop in Q1 2026. Unfortunately, it appears that the explosive price surge is not staying, but the three months we are now entering could be the worst yet. Read more “Memory prices to double in Q1 2026 compared to year-end”
QLC memory has caught on in SSDs, but remains a minority while TLC remains the standard. Increasing capacity by storing more bits in a single cell now appears to have run its course for now, and PLC NAND (5 bits per cell) has yet to materialize. A new approach based on so-called Multi-Site Cell layout may take over. Hynix has now presented this technology in chips that are meant to achieve PLC NAND–level capacity without its drawbacks. Read more “The future of SSDs: MSC NAND instead of PLC and HLC fragile tech?”
A year ago, Western Digital, who historically associated with mechanical (magnetic) HDD technology but then expanded into SSDs as well, announced the SSD business would move under the Sandisk name. WD acquired this formerly independent NAND and SSD manufacturer ten years ago. It took a while, but now this change is happening for real—all SSDs are being renamed, so let’s take a look at what names you should now be searching for. Read more “Say Goodbye to WD SSDs. You’ll find them as Sandisk products now”
The artificial intelligence hype is driving up the prices of system memory and storage, including SSDs. Prices have risen significantly, so you may now be forced to look for cheaper instead of “premium” SSD when on a tighter budget. We got the opportunity to briefly test one such drive: the WD Blue SN5100 module, which represents a lower product tier but offers solid performance and the “premier-league” brands. Read more “How good can a QLC SSD be? We tested the WD Blue SN5100”
The next casualty of the massive price hikes and memory shortages fuelled by the AI bubble is, ironically, an actual memory vendor. More precisely, a business that used to support them, but which now isn’t lucrative enough compared to the booming AI datacenter chip business. In a way, it’s symbolic of how the PC industry’s pursuit of AI profits is currently squeezing out “ordinary” everyday customers—both consumers and professionals. Read more “AI pays better: Micron kills Crucial, exits consumer memory & SSDs”
Not long ago, we reported bad news about NAND Flash prices. Western Digital announced across-the-board increases for HDDs, and its SanDisk division raised prices for NAND and SSDs built from them. It now looks like that was just the beginning—broad price hikes across the memory market are ahead. Samsung, one of the largest producers, has also announced price increases. And it’s not just NAND and SSDs—things may get worse with DRAM. Read more “Almost like price fixing, memory manufacturers hike prices in sync”
Western Digital, or more specifically its SanDisk division, is among the more popular SSD brands. Now they’re introducing a new addition to the budget WD Blue lineup: the WD Blue SN5100. These modules replace last year’s SN5000 line-up and promise significantly better performance. Not always though, because while the new series uses a newer and better generation of NAND, all models now come with QLC-based chips. Read more “WD Blue SN5100: New Budget SanDisk SSD Is Faster, but Uses QLC”
You may soon start seeing Micron SSDs in laptops. The company, which manufactures its own NAND memory, sells products under the Crucial brand in retail, but uses its own name for OEM products. The latest offering, branded as the Micron 2600, is built on QLC NAND memory, but it promises performance matching even exceeding TLC modules. This is supposed to be achieved through a special write approach—though we shouldn’t expect miracles. Read more “Micron 2600: Adaptive Write Technology Ending All QLC Issues?”
SSDs using the high-speed PCI Express 5.0 interface have faced significant issues with power consumption and overheating since their debut virtually across the board, as all early models featured the same hot-running Phison E26 controller. This is now improving with the arrival of more efficient second-generation modules. Among the first are ADATA’s XPG Mars 980 drives, which benefit from a controller manufactured using a 6nm process. Read more “ADATA PCIe 5.0 SSDs introduce low-power controller, unusual cooler”
At the beginning of the year, we reported a price drop forecast for SSDs and other storage devices based on NAND Flash memory. Unfortunately, it seems this downward price trend won’t last for long, and the bottom will likely be reached by early summer. After that, the trend is expected to reverse, and prices will unfortunately start to rise again. The window to snag extra terabytes at a bargain prices won’t last long. Read more “SSDs getting cheaper is almost over: Big price jump from summer on”
Not so long ago, one could wonder how long it would take SSDs to overtake hard disk drives in capacity. It’s a while since that has happened, but the capacity of electronic storage based on NAND Flash memory continues to grow at a much faster rate than that of magnetic platters. While WD and Seagate have only just passed the 30TB capacity mark, SSDs now offer four times that. The price per unit of capacity, however, will be somewhere else. Read more “SSD reaches 122TB capacity, beating largest HDD by four times”
Raspberry Pi started as a small foundation, but since then it has created several boards and modules, its own “keyboard PC”, peripherals and is starting to develop its own chips. RPi traditionally used memory cards as the storage, but the latest version has NVMe SSD support, so now comes the logical thing to do: Raspberry Pi is releasing its own SSD, although this time it is not in-house product, the module is manufactured externally. Read more “Raspberry Pi releases its own SSD for RPi 5, adds PCIe 3.0 support”
SSD pricing has been unfavorable form most of the year, with storage becoming more and more expensive ever since the second half of 2023. Fortunately, it seems that the cycle is finally over and prices will hopefully start falling again, according to the SSD market forecast for the last quarter of the year published by market research outfit TrendForce, which has been tracking DRAM and NAND (and with them, entire SSDs) prices for a long time. Read more “Finally cheaper SSDs: A period of falling prices is coming”
QLC NAND SSDs, which have low endurance but should allow for lower prices, have recently been improving in performance more and more, which is the second main criticism of this type of memory. Recently there was the cheap Kingston NV3 SSD, which will apparently feature both QLC and TLC NAND versions, now a new Crucial P310 drive is coming to market. And this module is seemingly the fastest QLC SSD ever to come out so far. Read more “Crucial P310: Surprising performance from an SSD with QLC NAND?”
The boom (or bubble?) around AI has brought many things, and among them interesting news for those missing SSDs based on MLC and SLC NAND Flash which was more pricy but had better performance and crucially, much longer lifespan so you didn’t have to worry about wearing out the SSD. That said, Gigabyte is launching an SSD that is officially designed for AI applications, but not just for them – its main asset is precisely SLC recording. Read more “Gigabyte SSD brings back SLC NAND, lasts 109,500 write cycles”
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