The analyst firm TrendForce has put out a warning that the price of solid-state drives (SSD) is going to increase this year because of a pre-existing shortage of NAND Flash controllers and the power outage that recently hit Samsung’s Austin semiconductor plant. It said manufacturers are now preparing to raise the prices of SSDs by around 3-8% in Q2.
In the second quarter, TrendForce was predicting that client SSDs would retain the same price as of Q1 but it now expects the price to rise by 3-8%. Things are a little better in the enterprise SSD category, originally it said the price would fall 0-5% in Q2, but now it has prices rising from 0-5%, which is not as steep as client SSDs.
Last month, Samsung’s Austin plant was hit by a severe winter storm that suspended production from mid-February to March 2. TrendForce said that it doesn’t expect the factory to become fully operational until the end of March which will impact Samsung’s ability to produce SSDs.
With the coronavirus still affecting all parts of the world, demand for notebooks - so that work can be performed from home - is still high. Those looking to purchase a notebook equipped with an SSD could see devices getting more expensive as the year goes on.
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