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

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Winners & losers: As demand from data centers drives up prices for components that directly or indirectly depend on NAND and DRAM, pre-built PCs are now often the only way for consumers to find reasonable deals. An executive at an SSD controller manufacturer recently confirmed that this is because PC manufacturers are ordering inventory that previously went to end users.

During Computex 2026, Silicon Motion senior VP Nelson Duann told Tom's Hardware that NAND shortages over the past year have nearly eliminated the direct-to-consumer market for SSDs. The company's SSD controllers, which previously ended up in drives sold at retail, now mostly go to companies such as Dell and Asus.

Traditionally, companies like Silicon Motion would sell SSD controllers to module manufacturers such as Samsung and Western Digital, which develop custom firmware and combine the controllers with NAND from suppliers to produce the SSDs that appear on store shelves. However, most DRAM and NAND currently goes toward AI data centers, leaving consumer products starved.