SSD Prices Could Increase Following Western Digital Material Contamination

gamerant.com:

Solid-state drives, or SSDs, are favored among gamers for their fast speeds, used in gaming PCs and consoles alike. Last year, SSD prices were moderate, with fears that chip shortages could increase the price of storage devices this year. Now, those concerns have been amplified after Western Digital announced a huge loss of NAND flash memory in a contamination incident at two of its fabrication facilities.

Western Digital specializes in hard disk drives and data storage solutions, offering consumer and enterprise products. Its SSD and hard drive range includes products that target the gaming community, including the WD Black range, compatible with Xbox One and PlayStation 5 among other devices. Gamers are likely to suffer from this blow to Western Digital’s NAND flash production, with fears that the price of SSDs could increase by 10 percent by Q2 2022.

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The affected facilities, jointly run by Western Digital and Kioxia, are based in Yokkaichi and Kitakami, Japan. The production by these companies represents approximately 30 percent of the NAND flash market, showing that this incident is no small issue. Details about the cause of the contamination have not yet been released, but Western Digital announced it had lost 6.5 exabytes worth of NAND flash memory—equal to 6.5 billion gigabytes.

Reports indicate that the incident could have widespread implications for the SSD market. The contamination was reportedly detected in late January, raising questions if products using these chips have already reached consumers. Apple has reportedly used chips produced by Kioxia in their iPhone 13, iPad Pro, and MacBook lineups, triggering rumors about whether products produced in January