"The retail SSD market has almost disappeared," Silicon Motion says, as OEMs take what's left

[scoffer]

I also think retail sales are down because SSD's last a LONG time and even older ones are plenty fast for the majority of people. This isn't the age of mechanical spinning drives as primaries, SSD's last much longer.

SSD's last much longer...........until they don't.

 

[Hecate91]

Eh? If demand for SSDs had "shriveled", prices would be down, not up.

There is no consumer demand for SSD's, there is a difference.

Demand isn't stagnant: it's consuming SSDs literally as fast as manufacturers can mint them. Do you believe consumers are going to permanently stop purchasing SSDs because prices are temporarily high?

AI datacenters are consuming SSD's, and consumers won't buy something if it's priced beyond affordability. Corporations are counting on the AI bubble never popping which is why there are already some companies doing "rent a PC".

 

[Rapob]

While I don't have hard proof I've always suspected that the GPU producers NEVER release the best product they can make but do incremental steps instead.
Suspicion number two (yeah trust issues are my forte) : AMD and Nvidia hold hands under the table/sleep in the same bed.
Whatever the truth of the matter may be it doesn't affect me: even considering the purchase of a high-end card makes me feel silly so I never do that.

Well thats probably true, most GPUs are cutdown for consumers. AMD cancelled the biggest RDNA 4 SKU as well (which was stupid, considering that RTX 5000 series were kinda meh). Imagine if AMD had a 9080 XT / 9080 XTX this generation, using like 24-32GB GDDR7 on 384-512 bit bus and with a much bigger die than 9070 XT. RTX 5080 would be beat, considering how much Nvidia nerfed this card (5080 should have had 24GB from day one, seperating it more from 5070 Ti)

AMDs biggest problem today, is that they rely 100% on TSMC (like many others). AMD earns more on CPUs and APUs, especially now with RAM pricing gone south (margins on gaming GPUs got smaller). I think AMD needs to make gaming GPUs on Intel 18A/14A or Samsung 2nm to "fix" this TSMC bottbleneck but right now, with current RAM pricing, it probably won't matter if they stay at TSMC or not.

In 1-2 years, memory prices probably improved.

 

[Rapob]

Yes, because VC money grows on trees, infinitely. In other news:

"OpenAI made $13 billion in 2025 and lost $21 billion doing it"

Maybe eventually you'll connect the dots.

You don't understand business. They are gearing up for the future, that costs money. Eventually, they will become profitable, or not. That is business 101 really.

They did not loose 21 billion. They spent 21 billion to ensure their future.

Maybe eventually you will begin to understand how business work.

 

[Endymio]

There is no consumer demand for SSD's, there is a difference ... AI datacenters are consuming SSD's

Was that a joke? Some 250 million PCs will be sold this year, each and every one containing a consumer SSD.

The retail aftermarket for SSDs is significantly depressed due to prices, which perhaps is what you mean to say. But even there it's incorrect to say there is "no demand", nor to imply -- as the original poster did -- that this will somehow magically lead to consumers shifting away from using SSDs permanently.

 

[toooooot]

Some will not believe me, but I have a 4tb SSD which I bought for 160 dollars.

 

[Alpine7995]

Consumers are not just competing with other PC builders anymore. They are competing with Dell, Asus, hyperscalers, and anyone else capable of signing a supply contract for several warehouses of NAND.

We spent years celebrating how cheap and plentiful solid-state storage had become, only for AI data centers to arrive and turn the humble 1TB SSD back into a major purchasing decision.

 

[trparky]

Consumers are not just competing with other PC builders anymore. They are competing with Dell, Asus, hyperscalers, and anyone else capable of signing a supply contract for several warehouses of NAND.

Exactly, hence my reason for saying that the DIY market is pretty much dead or if not, it's very much on life support. I just don't see the DIY market surviving after this.

From this point on, don't be surprised that DIY will be a thing of the past. If you want a computer, everything will be standardized. You'll have a few SKUs to choose, each one being in a kind of performance tier like system.

Honestly, this might even actually help the PC space because then Windows wouldn't have to support every piece of hardware under the sun. They'd be able to better target and optimize the OS much like how Apple can with MacOS.

 

[Hecate91]

Exactly, hence my reason for saying that the DIY market is pretty much dead or if not, it's very much on life support. I just don't see the DIY market surviving after this.

From this point on, don't be surprised that DIY will be a thing of the past. If you want a computer, everything will be standardized. You'll have a few SKUs to choose, each one being in a kind of performance tier like system.

Honestly, this might even actually help the PC space because then Windows wouldn't have to support every piece of hardware under the sun. They'd be able to better target and optimize the OS much like how Apple can with MacOS.

I could see much of the DIY market going away, being left with only a few consumer facing brands for storage and RAM, but maybe the high end market will stick around, those who have deep pockets will keep paying up for stupidly expensive SSD's. Everyone else will get a few SKU's at best on a limited selection of hardware.
Windows getting better optimization for hardware would be good, but not the consolidation of hardware into a Mac like ecosystem, which would only drive up prices from the lack of competition.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

In my experience:
* The amount of people paying attention to that is miniscule, if you don't follow tech news you either wouldn't know or just read a tiny article somewhere as one of many things and don't really act on it.
* Even when I tell people to stop dillydallying and pull the trigger on whatever they've been eyeing that is going to rise in price soon - they very rarely do.

However when people see Steam complaining about not enough space to install a game and then check SSD prices they go back to Steam and start deleting games. Storage space often (not always) is simply 'needed' because we're being lazy (more duplicate backups then needed, games/software installed that we keep around 'just in case' to avoid a download). Push the prices like this and people stop being lazy.

I've most of my coding projects on external servers and only keep a couple of games installed. Only have 1TB but that's good enough for me for years to come if needed.

Yeah but the overlap of people reading tech sites and assembling computers is high. People not reading tech sites are buying prebuilts at Best Buy.

Agree that storage is often about laziness. Video is the one thing that will make you need massive storage quickly. My work also involves large datasets but it's my hobby of video editing my other hobby of motorcycle racing that really eats up my storage. I mean I have a few TB of micro SD cards because 4K 120 FPS and 8K (360) 60 FPS chew through GBs fast and a single race can be 15-20 min of footage/ (Though I bought those back when they were cheap)

 

[captaincranky]

You don't seem to know what these terms mean. Consumers compete for products by paying the price demanded .... when the price goes up (as it has now) those willing to pay the higher price win. Nor is it "anticompetitive" to purchase products in advance of actually needing them.

Those customers willing to pay today's prices certainly can't, "win", in the strictest sense of the term. It could be said that those with the ability to pay, have, "won", in terms of having enough disposable income to offset the impact of today's bizarre prices. But at the checkout counter, everyone is losing, big time.

The way you suggest, is the way I have always shopped for computer components. I envision a machine, then respond to sale prices on parts as they happen. Usually, I'll grab the CPU and/or mobo 1st, then fill in the rest of the machine as sales happen..

Of course, that strategy can lead to impulse buying. I got suckered by a sale on an i5-12600K with a Team Group 1TB MVme drive for $150.00. No sh!t. I've been shopping parts ever since to fill up the case.(As of now, I have everything I need to finish it), The big drawback is a 4 foot high stack of boxes in the living room. I know I could cut that in half, if I could somehow summon the ambition to put them together..Ironically, I had just finished another build when that CPU went on sale. So, I didn't need another computer, much less have any place to put one. But, I strongly believe that if you see a great price on stuff you should go for it, and worry about the details later...

 

[captaincranky]

Agree that storage is often about laziness. Video is the one thing that will make you need massive storage quickly. My work also involves large datasets but it's my hobby of video editing my other hobby of motorcycle racing that really eats up my storage. I mean I have a few TB of micro SD cards because 4K 120 FPS and 8K (360) 60 FPS chew through GBs fast and a single race can be 15-20 min of footage/ (Though I bought those back when they were cheap)

4K porn will chew up storage in a big big hurry as well. (Not that I have any personal experience with it.)

Once upon a time a downloaded, "durty pitchur" wuz 1024 x 768. Now, the "art houses" are pushing still sets out of what I imagine are Nikon D850s at 48MP and hitting almost 9000 pixels, long side,

In other news, while everybody was bellyaching about the prices of RAM and SSDs. The Hard drive manufacturers doubled down on their prices as well. A 4TB WD "Black", that I used to buy for $110,00 to $140.00, is now "available" at Newegg for the astonishing bargain price of only $244.00.

If you see the motivation there, as SSD prices came down, HDD makers had to discount their wares because the SSD prices were getting uncomfortably close. Now they're not, and so boyz, gurlz, and all genders not specifically mentioned, I think it's fair to say that Seagate and Western Digital have disrobed their nefarious intentions, and joined in on what I would describe as, "the big customer gang bang. Or perhaps it's, "market penetration", call it what you will.

Admit it, CharGPT can't do double entendre as well as I can.

 

[onebignerd]

How so exactly? Those tariffs would hit that phone equally along with everything else. And had the Left not fought those tariffs so hard -- or better yet, taken action years ago -- we'd still be able to build phones still in the US.


You don't seem to know what these terms mean. Consumers compete for products by paying the price demanded .... when the price goes up (as it has now) those willing to pay the higher price win. Nor is it "anticompetitive" to purchase products in advance of actually needing them.

Possibly. But those doom-and-gloom predictions are based on simple extrapolation of current demand trends ... and that's rarely accurate.

Don't you read the news? TMSC says chip production for the next two years is sold out already. Consumers are competing for what little already produced products are on the market, little if any of the reserved two years production will be available to the consumer market. How do we compete for what is never offered and how is that not anticompetitive?

 

[Endymio]

Don't you read the news? TMSC says chip production for the next two years is sold out already.

Oops! Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron all manufacture their own memory chips ... TSMC isn't involved.

How do we compete for what is never offered and how is that not anticompetitive?

Two monstrous fallacies in one sentence. Firs, SSDs are still for sale to consumers: Newegg, Best Buy, Amazon -- all have stock. Right now. Today.

Secondly, you're confused about what the therm "anticompetitive" means, which refers to sellers attempting to stifle rivals or colluding to reduce production. AI firms are buyers, and they're actually increasing competition: due to their demand, chip production is escalating rapidly, and new memory makers are entering the market. You're merely unhappy because it's a competition you're losing.

 

[trparky]

How do we compete for what is never offered and how is that not anti-competitive?

It's money. TSMC is satisfying whoever is willing to pony up the most cash and right now, that's companies that make AI chips, server chips, and of course, Apple.

Suffice it to say, in the coming years the computing market is going to look very, very different. I'll say it again, the DIY market is dying and we're seeing the beginnings of it right now. In the near future, you'll have a very limited set of SKUs to choose from centered around heavy amounts of hardware and specs standardization.