[Hardware] The HDD market pushes SSDs and their manufacturers

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Surely this Amazon Prime Day you have bought something given the discounts that were offered and it is possible that on Black Friday we will bite again, or perhaps we are preparing for it. In any case, what we have to know is that according to the latest market analysis, the prices of NAND Flash memory chips are going to drop, which is going to involve the two main players: the price of RAM and the price of SSDs.

The report comes to us from TrendForce statistics and trends agency, which are famous for their predictions for these types of markets. This report gives quite specific data, which will leave us, as we will see below, some fall percentages that really are to be taken into account.

It has happened again, but this time it was much less predictable. After the outbreak of COVID-19 and its consequences, other factors have altered the market as we know it and it is nothing more than the arrival of higher capacity HDDs.

This has led to price fluctuations and above all, it has modified the stock plans of the large NAND Flash companies. The forecasts were for a lower stock of units in the factories due to a higher level of sales, but all this has caused the opposite effect: there is a high level of stocks and excess capacity is also high, so there has been a imbalance between supply and demand.

This also affects servers, where WD and Seagate with their new drives are catching up on the needs of their customers, which has caused the number of NAND Flash modules to increase on offer. Therefore, these factors will cause the market for SSDs (and presumably that of RAM, but for other reasons) to crash.

How much drop can we expect and when will this SSD price drop occur?
SSD vs HDD

TrendForce estimates affirm that before the end of the year prices will fall by 10%, where already in 2021 prices will continue this decrease with 15% in the first quarter and possibly continue up to 20%.

Therefore, if the estimates are true, this Christmas we will not have the SSDs at the lowest possible price, (historical minimum price offers aside), but well into next year. In any case, the greater demand for consoles will stop the blow, since the forecasts are for a very limited number of units as happened with the Ampere GPUs, so at some point next year prices will stop their decline and finally they will return to rise.

When? Possibly by the middle of the year, but that is too long a time to be taken as a statement because the market changes every so often and the forecasts are adjusted to this. In any case, we do know that prices will fall for the remainder of the year and this is always good news for the final consumer.