(Image credit: Future)
Following our brief tour around the state of RAM pricing in 2026, it seemed only fair to extend our ‘State of the Union’ look at PC component pricing to another market that has taken an absolute beating in the AI crunch: SSDs.It’s a sadly familiar tale. Like RAM, SSDs were once an afterthought when it came to PC building — you always knew you could find a ton of capacity, decent speeds, and a reputable brand at a reasonable price. Like RAM, SSD shortages have driven absolutely insane price rises across the board, and like RAM, the death of Micron’s Crucial has seen a major player leave the scene.As you can imagine, the SSD market is decidedly more complex and fragmented than the RAM market, for obvious reasons. Whereas your principal choice of RAM boils down to DDR4 vs DDR5, and then capacity, there are a plethora of SSD solutions for PC. There are M.2 drives for performance, or larger SATA SSDs for volume or even external storage. The former also sees vast performance differences between Gen 5 and Gen 4 options, adding another dimension.Sadly, prices on SSDs generally have skyrocketed. This uncomplicates the picture slightly. But just how badly have SSD prices changed in the last year, and can you buy an affordable SSD these days?12 months on
