Chinese YMTC SSDs make their way into retail Lenovo laptops — media outlet slams YMTC PCIe 4.0 drive for 'below average for an SSD in an office laptop' in review

As the memory and storage chip crisis continues to squeeze the market, some PC manufacturers began looking at alternative sources earlier this year just to meet consumer demand. Notebookcheck discovered in its review of the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G9 IPL that it came with a 512GB YMTC M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD. What’s more interesting is that the laptop is readily available in the U.S., and you can order it on Amazon for $1,124.25 at the time of writing -- although as noted above, Lenovo says the U.S. model (21UX000KUS) does not ship with a YMTC SSD.

This is the first recorded instance that a laptop from a major OEM is being sold in the United States with a YMTC SSD, which is particularly curious given that the company was added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List in 2022. While this prevented the company from acquiring goods and services that were made with or contained American technologies, it does not prevent Lenovo, whose headquarters are in China, from importing such drives into the U.S.

Major PC manufacturers have traditionally relied on established storage chip makers such as Samsung, SK hynix, Kioxia, Micron, and SanDisk, but the ongoing AI buildout has driven prices through the roof. Even Apple, which previously held significant influence over suppliers, is now seeking a blessing from the U.S. government to buy memory chips from the Chinese firm CXMT. Although it’s not on the Entity List, it’s still designated as a Chinese military company, meaning that doing business with it would carry some risk for an American company.

Notebookcheck says that the YMTC drive’s performance “is below average for an SSD in an office laptop,” meaning it could not compete against the best SSDs you can buy today. Most buyers likely won't care about this, especially since the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G9 IPL is marketed as an office laptop for everyday use. This means that its target market will likely be unfamiliar with specifications like read/write speeds and will probably be satisfied as long as it’s faster than a hard drive.

Lenovo’s deployment of YMTC drives is particularly important because it’s one of the largest laptop brands in the U.S. by volume. In fact, even as PC shipments fell by 7% in the first quarter of 2026, Lenovo’s market share actually grew by 1.2%, making it the third largest desktop and notebook brand after Dell and HP. Since the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G9 IPL is a relatively affordable laptop designed for office use, it would likely sell many units through enterprise purchases and help increase the adoption of Chinese storage solutions in the U.S.

Since YMTC is also listed as a Chinese military company, institutions looking to buy this particular model may face procurement challenges, especially if they operate in sensitive industries or are government agencies. However, it seems that the memory chip crisis has grown to the point where it’s willing to offer a model it won’t be able to sell in some instances. Nevertheless, this helps ensure that buyers without restrictions have a more affordable option.

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