Higher NAND prices mean most laptops will remain limited to 256GB SSDs

Posted on Tuesday, March 14 2017 @ 14:15 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
As you may be aware, pricing of NAND flash memory has increased significantly the past half year and is expected to rise more the coming quarters as supply fails to keep up with the strong demand. Market research firm TrendForce estimates the pricing of mainstream SSDs will be up over 10 percent sequentially this quarter. Compared with Q4 2016, MLC consumer SSDs are 12-16 percent pricier while pricing of TLC-based models increased 10-16 percent.

One of the implications of this increase in pricing is that standard laptops will not be getting higher-capacity SSDs as this is becoming too costly. Mainstream laptops are expected to stick with 128GB and 256GB options.
“Average contract prices of client-grade SSDs in the PC-OEM market are rising this first quarter because not only PC clients are aggressively stocking up their inventories, smartphone clients are also maintaining strong demand for storage components,” said Alan Chen, senior research manager of DRAMeXchange. “At the same time, the industry-wide transition to 3D-NAND and 2D-NAND TLC production has sharply reduced the supply of Flash memory of the 2D-NAND MLC type. Thus, the price increase of MLC-based SSDs is outpacing that of TLC-based SSDs.”

Chen also pointed out that SSDs are increasingly preferred by consumers due to having faster read/write speed than HDDs, so PC-OEMs will keep up their SSD purchases despite tight supply for NAND Flash and SSDs. In the global notebook market, the SSD adoption rate is estimated to arrive at 45% this year. Additionally, the growth in the notebook SSD adoption will be higher in the consumer-class notebook segment than the business-class segment. On the other hand, the tight NAND Flash supply and sharp price hikes for SSDs will likely discourage PC-OEMs from raising storage capacity. Therefore, the storage specifications for mainstream PC-OEM SSDs are expected to remain in the 128GB and 256GB options.”
Further details can be read at DRAMeXchange.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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