It’s safe to say that the ongoing component shortage has well and truly hit SSDs now, too. Many models are sold out entirely, but there’s still plenty of options if you want to shop—provided you don’t mind spending way more than you should, that is.
The current market conditions have many of my friends wondering if now is the time to buy a new SSD “just in case.” In case of what, you may ask? And should you start considering the same thing? Let’s unpack this step by step.
Is now the time to panic-buy an SSD?
There’s no easy answer to that question.
Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
Shortages tend to push people to buy things they may or may not need just in case. We’ve seen this time and time again in the PC hardware world, especially during various GPU shortages. Now that RAM prices are through the roof, and SSDs have pretty much caught up, PC building communities are filled with posts about whether now is the time to buy an SSD (or a GPU, for that matter) before it gets even worse.
I get the logic. I pondered it myself. But is now the best time?
I suppose that if you’re going to stock up on any PC component, an SSD is the most useful. It can end up in a NAS or in an enclosure to serve as a portable drive or a backup, or it can simply populate another slot in your PC and add more storage. Filling your SSD to the very brim isn’t a good idea, so you might as well have another one to keep both in good shape.
Another reason why you might want to buy a new drive is if your current one is underperforming or even failing.
But if you’re just thinking of this from a “buy now before it gets worse” standpoint, this gets a little more complex.
Price history paints a bleak picture
It’s been a rough few months for SSDs.
Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
I check SSD prices almost daily at this point, and I don’t like what I see. We have Gen 4 SSDs priced up so high that they’re on a similar level to their twice-as-fast PCIe 5.0 counterparts; we have Gen 3 SSDs that are absolutely a terrible deal; we have SATA SSDs that cost the same or more than NVMes. The whole market’s been turned on its head, and it’s hard to figure out which way is up now.
It’s not just the lack of a generational/speed-based difference in pricing that gets to me. It’s the fact that the price per gigabyte has now truly gone off the deep end. 1TB SSDs are the worst of all, and 2TB SSDs—while easy to recommend just a couple of months ago—are overpriced, too. 4TB drives are holding on as the more cost-effective option, but they’re still awfully expensive.
Price history tells you all you need to know, whether you check Amazon or PC Part Picker. Take the Crucial T705 Gen 5 1TB SSD, for example. It’s gone up from $160 to $198 in the last 30 days; back in November, it was $130. Silicon Power’s less outrageous 1TB SSD cost $137 30 days ago ($149 now), but it was just $73 in November.
Back in October, it was still possible to get a 1TB SSD for around $60.
SSD prices are rough, but can they get even worse?
I’m not going to lie to you.
Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
The last quarter saw the price of consumer SSDs double (and then some). What will happen in the first three months of 2026? It’s hard to say, but the overall forecast for SSD pricing isn’t great.
TrendForce predicts that NAND flash prices are expected to increase by up to 38% quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2026. This won’t immediately carry over to retail stores, as those SSDs have been made and put up for sale long ago, but as we can see, the consumer market is quick to carry the brunt of the cost increases. The same thing can be seen in RAM, where some prebuilt makers like Maingear actually offer “bring your own RAM” PCs: they build the whole PC, you supply the RAM.
But while the NAND shortage is predicted to last for over a year (or even two), it doesn’t mean that the prices will continuously rise throughout that period. I’m not a market analyst, but I can tell that some drives are at least showing signs of slowing down in their rush to get pricier and pricier.
It depends on the SSD, really. High-quality drives from brands like Samsung are often pricier than cheaper brands, often with good reason. But on the whole, I’ve been seeing similar prices now as I’ve seen two to four weeks ago, which may not mean much, but at least it’s not as bad as it was at the end of last year.
How to get the most out of your money
Don’t need it, don’t buy it.
Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek
We’ve entered yet another “winter” for the PC market. With RAM, SSDs, and GPUs overpriced, and other components potentially suffering as a result, I dare say that now is not the time to panic-buy anything. If you don’t absolutely need it, don’t buy it.
Yes, the prices may yet be worse. But they’re bad enough now that it’s hard to recommend shopping just in case they’ll be even more inflated down the line. It’s possible that we may get to a place where most 1TB SSDs cost $200 and more—honestly, we’re nearly there for some brands. But even if we do, that won’t make that $150 1TB drive any more worth the money now than it will be in two months.
If you could see yourself actually needing more storage within the next couple of years, it’s probably better to buy it now than later, but no one knows what the market is really going to look like. All I know is that it’s bad now, and it’s likely to get worse, but perhaps not at such a fast rate as before.
My advice? Skip buying anything if you can, and if you can’t, don’t panic-buy—hunt for deals. Even SSDs and RAM still get sales, and while they’re kind of laughable compared to early 2025 pricing, they’re the only way to save some money in this current climate.
