SSD prices continue to plunge with no visible bottom in sight. Back in March, we reported that prices had fallen 15 to 30 percent since January. Now, having tracked more than 60 popular SKUs, we see the average price has dropped since then by around 25 percent in the 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities, with an average cost per GB of just 6 cents. You can pay quite a bit more for a high-performance PCIe 4 drive or a little less for an old-fashioned SATA or PCIe 3.0 SSD.
The reason for the price drops is no secret. There’s been a severe drop in demand for NAND Flash memory, which is what SSDs rely on, and according to Analyst Group TrendForce, the average selling price fell 15 percent in Q1 of 2023 with a further drop of 8 to 13 percent when Q2 is completed. Meanwhile, revenue for enterprise SSDs fell by 47.3 percent in Q1.
We don’t have the numbers for consumer SSD revenue or sales volume, but it’s easy to see that, with less demand for drives and memory overall, vendors have to move their inventory. If you’re ater a storage upgrade or building a new PC, there has never been a better time to buy an SSD, but things could get even cheaper in the weeks ahead.
1TB SSD Price Cuts
At this point, prices have fallen so much that 1TB is no longer the sweet spot for mainstream (non-budget) PCs. You can get a budget-conscious, PCIe 4.0 NVMe drive such as the WD Black SN770 for as little as 5 cents per GB, roughly $50 to $60. That kind of drive will net you a rated sequential transfer speed of 4,000 to 5,000 MBps for both reads and writes, but you probably won’t get a built-in DRAM cache.
If you want better performance, you can have it for 6 to 8 cents per GB. The top-performing PCIe 4.0 drive, Samsung’s 990 Pro, was a pricey $169 back in March, but now it’s just $84.99. For that price, you get rated sequential transfers of 7,450 and 6,900 MBps.
Bringing up the performance rear are some old, PCIe 3.0 and SATA drives that cost as little as $35. However, we’d recommend you not use these as boot drives, unless you are upgrading a really old computer.
2TB SSD Price Cuts
At this point, you can get a budget PCIe 4.0 SSD in 2TB capacity for less than $100, with most high-performance models in the $120 - $160 range. The best deal among high-end drives is the WD Black SN850X for $134 or the slightly older, Samsung 980 Pro for $116. Sabrent seems unaware of the market, as its Rocket 4 Plus-G still costs $199, $40 more than its nearest competitor.
Silicon Power’s UD90 is an incredible bargain, costing just 4 cents per GB or $77 while promising reads and writes at 5,000 and 4,800 MBps respectively. Only slower, non-PCIe 4.0 drives are cheaper and most of them are only a little bit cheaper than this.
4TB SSD Price Cuts
The cost of a 4TB SSD is finally within range for a lot of consumers. But, if you want high performance, you’re still going to pay $300 or more. The best performance value in this capacity is the WD Black SN850X, which is just $299 or 7 cents per GB.
Silicon Power’s UD90 isn’t as performant but is a much better value at $174 or 4 cents per GB. If you need or want an old-fashioned 2.5-inch, SATA drive, you can grab one for as little as $154.
What About PCIe 5.0 SSDs?
In the last few weeks, drives that use the PCIe 5.0 interface have started to hit the market and, as the bleeding edge of storage tech, they are priced at a high premium. The least-expensive PCIe 5.0 drive we’ve seen is Inland’s TD510, which is $269 for 2TB and $177 for 1TB on Amazon. But if you live near a Micro Center, you can score one for $229 or $134 respectively.
Wherever you buy, the prices are much higher than what you’d pay per GB for a PCIe 4.0 drive, at least at the 2TB capacity. Nevertheless, the Inland has dropped in price as it started at $349 for the 2TB and $199 for the 1TB model (on Amazon) back when it launched in April.
Is Now the Time to Buy an SSD?
Back in March, we were impressed by how much prices had dropped since January and, now, they’ve gone down quite a bit more. That’s a trend which is likely to continue as we approach the Prime Day deals holiday in July.
So should you wait or pull the trigger now? As always, the answer depends on what you need or want right now. If you are just about out of storage today and you upgrade your drive, you should not feel bad if you see the price drop by 10 or 15 percent in a few weeks. If you need or really want it today, get it today.
However, if you’re in more of a planning mode – perhaps you’re gathering parts for a build in mid-to-late July, you might want to wait and see what kind of storage sales appear around the time of Prime Day, which is June 11th and 12th. Even if Amazon doesn’t have the SSD you want on sale, some of its competitors – Newegg, for example – might.
We would not be surprised to see prices for high-performance 2TB drives like the WD SN850X or Solidigm P44 Pro get much closer to $100, though we don’t think they’ll dip below that amount, even with the biggest sales. Hovering at $116 and now a bit outdated, the Samsung 980 Pro 2TB has a chance to fall below $100 if there’s a sale, however.
After Prime Day is in the rear view mirror, prices on SSDs will likely continue to fall because analysts don’t expect a significant recovery in NAND demand anytime soon. We could well be writing another article like this one in September.
