Western Digital confirms SSD prices will rise due to production issues

Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, the technology sector has been going through a bad time, con lack of materials, logistics problems, factory closures, etc.

The bad news of the moment speaks of SSDs, more specifically those of the Western Digital (WD) brand. And this is bad news not only for the company, but also for consumers, because prices will go up.

WD sent an email to its partners, which ended up being leaked, informing them of an accident that contaminated production, which resulted in the loss of 6.5 exabytes from its 3D BiCS NAND flash chips. As reported by one of the company’s executives to these partners, “costs increased significantly in the short term” and with it the prices of all Flash products would also increase.

In an inspection carried out by the company, it was reported that the BiCS 3D production line in Yokkaichi and Kitakami were contaminated, finding that there were impurities that rendered the product useless.

According to information from Western Digital itself, there were about 6.5 exabytes of contaminated flash chips. Considering that the process to produce a 3D NAND takes around two to three months, this development is something of great concern for the industry and consumers.

As reported, it appears that the Kioxia Factory may also have had problems with its products. The Japanese company has a production that generally exceeds Western Digital. It is estimated that, adding the losses of the two companies, 14 exabytes of 3D NAND flash memory may have been discarded.

With a 35% share of the NAND market, Western Digital and Kioxia, applying any price changes in relation to memories, will significantly impact the market. Trendforce has previously indicated that the price of these products could increase by 5% to 10% in the second half of 2022, but with this unexpected event, prices may increase even more.

So, in case you are thinking of buying an SSD, maybe now is the time to get this upgrade for your PC, because the future does not look promising.