Silicon Motion says retail SSD market has almost disappeared

Silicon Motion vice-president Nelson Duann told Tom's Hardware that "The retail SSD market has almost disappeared." He said controllers the company sells to module makers are now largely turning up in SSDs shipped to PC OEMs, because OEMs cannot obtain enough NAND directly from memory manufacturers and are increasingly buying finished SSDs instead.

Where OEMs such as Dell and HP once bought NAND in bulk and built PC storage themselves, Duann says they have shifted to sourcing SSDs from module makers like Samsung and SanDisk amid rising demand for AI servers. The result is that drives which would normally reach the retail market are instead going to OEMs.

Duann says this change has been taking place "since late last year and into this year." Consumers are already noticing higher prices and out-of-stock notices; NAND manufacturers are doing well and SSD companies are buying memory years in advance, leaving gamers with more expensive storage.

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