SSDs Are About to Get Cheaper: Prices to Continue to Drop Into Q1 of 2021

By Aaron Klotz
published

A great time to purchase SSDs

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

SSD prices have been going down over the past year, and according to industry analyst firm TrendForce, that trend will continue well into this holiday season - and beyond. Storage Newsletter released an article today indicating the average price for NAND flash, the main ingredient in speedy SSDs, will drop another 10% over the remainder of the year, and then possibly decrease 15% more in the first quarter of 2021.

The primary cause for the price fluctuation is high amounts of inventory and high amounts of NAND wafer production, which leads to an imbalance between supply and demand. At the same time, the demand for SSDs is declining in the server market. All combined, that should cause a 10% drop in average prices in Q4 of 2020. For 2021, this will accelerate another 15% as NAND flash supplies become more abundant.

This is great news if you're shopping for a new SSD right now; high-capacity NVMe SSDs have become incredibly cheap, competing directly with the SATA SSDs that used to be the cheaper alternative. You can find a 1TB NVMe SSD for almost $100 on a good sale, and 2TB models land for under $250. 

Be sure to check out our Best Prime Deals on SSDs for more good prices on the latest solid-state storage devices, but the chances are we'll see deeper price cuts around Black Friday and in the first quarter of next year, too.  

Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Freelance News Writer

Aaron Klotz is a freelance writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering news topics related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • NightHawkRMX
    Good. Eventually they will probably be the same cost if not cheaper than HDDs.

    I spent $39.99 on a 480gb PNY CS900 just the other day. In late 2018, $39.99 was roughly what it cost me for a Kingston A400 240gb SSD. In late 2017/early 2018 I paid about $35 for a 120gb SSD. Prices continue to drop dramatically.

    These PNY CS900 drives aren't amazing, but I have owned half a dozen or so and haven't had any issues. A 500gb HDD is around $20-25. For a drive exponentially faster and probably farmore reliable, almost 2x the cost seems like a good deal.

    I had a Corsair Source 240gb SSD. I noticed the mfg date was 2011 so I wanted to google hm it cost new. In 2011 a cheap dreamless SSD would have been between $300 and $400. WOAH.
    Reply
  • Math Geek
    not really been in the market for an nvme drive but as fast as the prices are falling, i see a 1 tb model in my future around the end of the year. i think when i finally see $75 for 1 tb, i'll pull the trigger. and with lower end models rapidly approaching this range, i expect midrange drives to get close by the end of the year. those pny drives are already low and i'm seeing wd blue drives dropping almost every day now :)

    i grabbed my first ssd which is a pny cs900 240 gb i got for $25 on sale last christmas time. didn't think i'd see such prices again for a while.
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX
    That's about the going rate for a 240gb CS900 anymore. I have bought probably 2 or 3 for about that price.
    Reply
  • spentshells
    1TB is still prohibitive price wise for the cheap lot like myself in canada anyhow.
    Reply
  • Where do these people get their price data? Or do they only look at the US? We had 2 price increases this year, the first in March then in June. Prices started to go down after August, but the drop was small and there was only one price drop, and not across all suppliers.
    Reply
  • NightHawkRMX said:
    Good. Eventually they will probably be the same cost if not cheaper than HDDs.

    That would be nice

    Do you mean SATA SSDs or NVMe SSDs?

    Can't see that ever happening with NVMe. The price of a SATA HDD per TB is currently around A$45- $65 per TB (Depending on the size of the drive you buy; Here's its more expensive the bigger you go)

    For NVMe it's currently around A$275 per TB.

    Each new PCie revision adds a substantial premium to the price which I feel will mean the prices over time will pretty much only very slowly decline.
    Reply
  • vern72
    Just bring back MLC! I want more longevity!
    Reply
  • Thomas_303
    Math Geek said:
    not really been in the market for an nvme drive but as fast as the prices are falling, i see a 1 tb model in my future around the end of the year. .

    They are very awesome, No point in bothering with a SSD now they difference in speed between a M.2 drive and SSD is now far greater than it ever was between a SSD and mechanical drive. It's a huuuge upgrade on the desktop and web browsing if you like to open a few thousands tabs like me.
    Reply