The price of SSDs is in rapid decline. Anyone who has been following the market for the last few months should not be surprised. We've long known that a glut of NAND flash memory and lowering manufacturing costs are now being passed along to the consumer, with typical reductions of 15 to 30 percent in just the last 60 days.
Back in October, analysts predicted that, by mid-2023, the price of drives would drop by 50 percent. At the time, major suppliers such as Kioxia and Micron announced that they would reduce the production of NAND to keep supplies lower. However, there's only so much that a memory manufacturer can do to limit output before they are losing money by maintaining idle production facilities.
Recently, we've seen a number of mind-blowing SSD deals on individual drives, but we wondered: just how much has the price of the average drive declined recently? To find out, I surveyed the current prices for 21 popular SSDs at 1TB, and then compared them to their price on January 3rd (approximately two months ago). I repeated the exercise for 2TB and 4TB capacities, though not all of the drives were available with these higher capacities.
1TB SSD Price Cuts
| Drive | Price | Price Per GB | Jan Price | Interface | Price Cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WD Black SN770 | $59.99 | $0.06 | $89.99 | PCIe 4 | 33.34% |
| Crucial P3 Plus | $54.99 | $0.05 | $79.99 | PCIe 4 | 31.25% |
| Intel 670p | $49.99 | $0.05 | $69.99 | PCIe 3 | 28.58% |
| Samsung 870 Evo | $64.98 | $0.06 | $89.99 | SATA | 27.79% |
| Crucial MX500 | $51.99 | $0.05 | $69.99 | SATA | 25.72% |
| Solidigm P41 Plus | $52.99 | $0.05 | $69.99 | PCIe 4 | 24.29% |
| WD Blue SN570 | $52.99 | $0.05 | $69.99 | PCIe 3 | 24.29% |
| Samsung 980 Pro | $99.99 | $0.10 | $129.99 | PCIe 4 | 23.08% |
| Silicon Power UD90 | $57.99 | $0.06 | $74.99 | PCIe 4 | 22.67% |
| Samsung 980 | $69.98 | $0.07 | $89.99 | PCIe 3 | 22.24% |
| Crucial P3 | $49.99 | $0.05 | $63.99 | PCIe 3 | 21.88% |
| SK hynix Gold P31 | $107.99 | $0.11 | $136.99 | PCIe 3 | 21.17% |
| Samsug 970 Evo Plus | $79.98 | $0.08 | $99.99 | PCIe 3 | 20.01% |
| Kingston KC3000 | $86.75 | $0.08 | $106.99 | PCIe 4 | 18.92% |
| Kingston Fury Renegade | $91.76 | $0.09 | $111.99 | PCIe 4 | 18.06% |
| Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus | $99.99 | $0.10 | $119.99 | PCIe 4 | 16.67% |
| Crucial P5 Plus | $89.99 | $0.09 | $99.99 | PCIe 4 | 10.00% |
| Sabrent Rocket Q | $79.99 | $0.08 | $79.99 | PCIe 3 | 0.00% |
| Samsung 990 Pro | $169.99 | $0.17 | $169.99 | PCIe 4 | 0.00% |
| SK hynix Platinum P41 | $149.99 | $0.15 | $149.99 | PCIe 4 | 0.00% |
| WD Black SN850X | $99.99 | $0.10 | $99.99 | PCIe 4 | 0.00% |
It seems that the biggest percentage price cuts have come on 1TB SSDs. Of the 21 models we researched, 17 had lower prices today than they did on January 3rd, with only one drive being cut less than 16 percent, and a 23 percent average cut.
The best value here, by far, is the WD Black SN770. This DRAMless PCIe 4.0 SSD promises sequential reads and writes of 5,150 and 4,850 MBps and costs only $0.06 per GB after a 33.3 percent price cut. When we reviewed the WD Black SN770 last year, we gave it 4.5 stars out of 5 thanks to its blazing-fast performance and excellent value. While it's not the fastest drive on the market, it's just a step or two behind competitors that cost 50 to 75 percent more per GB.
In fact, most of the drives that saw no price cut at all were among the fastest on the market: the industry-leading Samsung 990 Pro, the blazing WD Black SN850X and the speedy SK hynix Platinum P41. The 990 Pro and SN850X are ranked first and second on our list of the best SSDs.
2TB SSD Price Cuts
| Drive | Price | Price Per GB | Jan Price | Interface | Price Cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crucial P5 Plus | $131.99 | $0.06 | $194.99 | PCIe 4 | 32.31% |
| Samsung 970 Evo Plus | $139.99 | $0.07 | $189.99 | PCIe 3 | 26.32% |
| Intel 670p | $99.99 | $0.05 | $129.99 | PCIe 3 | 23.08% |
| Crucial MX500 | $119.99 | $0.06 | $149.99 | SATA | 20.00% |
| WD Black SN770 | $119.99 | $0.06 | $149.99 | PCIe 4 | 20.00% |
| WD Black SN850X | $159.99 | $0.08 | $189.99 | PCIe 4 | 15.79% |
| Kingston KC3000 | $162.72 | $0.08 | $192.99 | PCIe 4 | 15.68% |
| Kingston Fury Renegade | $177.55 | $0.09 | $202.99 | PCIe 4 | 12.53% |
| Solidigm P41 Plus | $109.99 | $0.05 | $124.99 | PCIe 4 | 12.00% |
| Samsung 980 Pro | $159.99 | $0.08 | $179.99 | PCIe 4 | 11.11% |
| Crucial P3 | $107.99 | $0.05 | $119.99 | PCIe 3 | 10.00% |
| Crucial P3 Plus | $112.99 | $0.06 | $124.99 | PCIe 4 | 9.60% |
| Silicon Power UD90 | $109.49 | $0.05 | $119.99 | PCIe 4 | 8.75% |
| WD Blue SN570 | $109.99 | $0.05 | $119.99 | PCIe 3 | 8.33% |
| SK hynix Platinum P41 | $249.99 | $0.12 | $259.99 | PCIe 4 | 3.85% |
| Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus | $199.99 | $0.10 | $199.99 | PCIe 4 | 0.00% |
| Samsung 990 Pro | $286.19 | $0.14 | $286.19 | PCIe 4 | 0.00% |
| SK hynix Gold P31 | $208.24 | $0.10 | $208.24 | PCIe 3 | 0.00% |
| Samsung 870 Evo | $169.99 | $0.08 | $159.99 | SATA | -6.25% |
The WD Black SN770 is a great value at 2TB as well, costing just 6 cents per GB after its 20 percent price cut. However, the faster Crucial P5 Plus, which is only a few dollars more, has a built-in DRAM cache, better performance and saw a 32.3 percent price cut since January.
Among SSDs with elite performance, the WD Black SN850X is the best value at just 8 cents per GB after a 15 percent price cut. The drive boasts sequential read and write speeds of 7,300 and 6,600 MBps and is second only to the extremely-expensive Samsung 990 Pro in performance.
The average price cut among the 19 drives in this category was 15.3 percent. Here we saw much more modest price cuts among top performers and we even saw one drive, the SATA-powered Samsung 870 Evo, go up in price by $10.
4TB SSD Price Cuts
| Drive | Price | Price Per GB | Jan Price | Interface | Price Cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kingston KC3000 | $399.77 | $0.10 | $537.00 | PCIe 4 | 25.55% |
| Samsung 870 Evo | $299.99 | $0.07 | $379.99 | SATA | 21.05% |
| Kingston Fury Renegade | $418.66 | $0.10 | $529.99 | PCIe 4 | 21.01% |
| Crucial P3 | $219.99 | $0.05 | $249.99 | PCIe 3 | 12.00% |
| Crucial P3 Plus | $264.99 | $0.06 | $299.99 | PCIe 4 | 11.67% |
| Crucial MX500 | $239.99 | $0.06 | $269.99 | SATA | 11.11% |
| Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus | $584.99 | $0.14 | $599.99 | PCIe 4 | 2.50% |
| WD Black SN850X | $399.99 | $0.10 | $399.99 | PCIe 4 | 0.00% |
As NAND prices fall, we expect to see a greater selection of 4TB drives on the market. However, right now, only 8 of the 21 drives we researched had 4TB capacities available.
Among these 8 drives, the average price cut was 15 percent, with only one drive, the WD Black SN850X not lowering its price at all. The biggest discount was on the Kingston KC3000, which had a 25.55 percent price cut. But this speedy drive, which promises 7,000 MBps sequential reads and writes, is not the cheapest, with a cost of 10 cents per GB.
The best 4TB value right now is the Crucial P3, which clocks in at just 5 cents per GB. However, it's a PCIe 3.0 drive and, as such, is limited to maximum sequential reads and writes of 3,500 and 3,000 MBps. For a bit more, you can get the Crucial P3 Plus, which ups the performance to 5,000 and 4,200 MBps.
Bottom Line
Now is a great time to buy an SSD, because prices have dropped substantially. However, there's a decent chance that we're not at the bottom yet.
If you're putting together a low-cost build, it's easy enough to get a name-brand, high-quality 1TB SSD for less than $60, and that's just amazing at a time when the price of so many things has gone up. And, if you're looking to add a secondary drive, you can do so more affordably than ever. Will prices be significantly lower when we revisit this list of drives next month? Only time will tell.
