Samsung might axe its consumer SATA III SSD lines because NAND flash is getting scarce across the board, and most of it is going to datacenter giants and AI labs instead of regular folks buying drives for their gaming rigs. The company is also apparently switching some of its NAND facilities in Pyeongtaek and Hwaseong over to DRAM production since demand for standard memory chips has blown up while NAND looks less profitable. This probably only affects older SATA drives, not the M.2 NVMe sticks people actually care about these days.
NAND prices have gotten stupid expensive, more than doubling in a few months, and the supply crunch could drag on for years as AI infrastructure keeps eating up inventory. Transcend got hit hard and hasn't gotten a shipment since October, and they're expecting things to stay rough until spring. Stock levels are basically at record lows right now, so good luck finding drives at reasonable prices anytime soon.
NAND prices have gotten stupid expensive, more than doubling in a few months, and the supply crunch could drag on for years as AI infrastructure keeps eating up inventory. Transcend got hit hard and hasn't gotten a shipment since October, and they're expecting things to stay rough until spring. Stock levels are basically at record lows right now, so good luck finding drives at reasonable prices anytime soon.
