It’s over – Kioxia exec declares the end of cheap 1TB SSDs

Kioxia declared that the “days of cheap 1TB SSDs” are over

Kioxia has confirmed that this year’s NAND production volume has already been sold out. AI demand has already caused huge increases in DRAM prices. Now, this demand has driven NAND prices higher, making NAND-based storage solutions more expensive. As a result, Kioxia has declared that the era of affordable 1TB SSDs is over. Well, at least until the AI boom ends.

If you are shopping for SSDs today, you will know that prices are up. 1TB PCIe 4.0 drives that once cost less than £70 now cost almost £130. While SSD pricing has not increased as much as DDR5 DRAM pricing, it is still much more expensive than before. This makes PC storage upgrades much more expensive.

To be honest, this year’s production volume is already sold out. The days of cheap 1TB SSDs for around 7,000 yen (approximately $45) are over.

– Shunsuke Nakato, Managing Director of Kioxia’s Memory Business Unit [translated]

With storage and DRAM both costing much more than before, it is clear that 2026 will be a year when PC builds will be incredibly expensive. Unless demand for AI datacenters evaporates, we are unlikely to see DRAM prices decrease until 2028. For NAND, price increases are expected until at least 2027. That said, Nvidia and several SSD partners plan to develop “AI SSD” products, which could further increase demand for NAND.

You can join the discussion on Kioxia declaring the end of cheap SSD storage on the OC3D Forums.