Samsung halting SATA SSD production says leaker, warns of 18 months of SSD price pressure

Samsung is reportedly halting SATA SSD production in 2026, with the company to announce the news in January 2026, most likely at CES 2026 or shortly after.

In a new video from leaker Moore's Law is Dead, we're to expect that Samsung's long-term exit from SATA SSD production is coming in January. MLID warns that Samsung diving out of the SATA SSD business could tighten supply and jack up the prices of SSD storage across the board in the months ahead, on top of all of the skyrocketing prices of RAM right now.

MLID notes that Samsung SSDs make up a huge amount of Amazon's top-selling SSDs with around 20% of them being SATA-based, and Samsung takes up a considerable portion of that. Samsung removing itself from the market would reduce overall SSD availability, which would put pressure on the pricing of both SATA and M.2 NVMe SSD drives... oh yay.

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If you're doubting this news as you're reading it, consider that memory industry veteran Dave Eggleston, was on MLID's recent podcast, where they were taking in questions from the audience. Eggleston said that NAND SSDs could be the next PC component to see price hikes across the board... oh yay, again.

MLID said that Samsung's move is much different from a reshuffle of its brand, with his sources saying that Samsung would be ending SATA SSD production altogether, after it has fulfilled existing contracts, rather than continuing to supply the same NAND to other consumer-facing labels.

This is a genuine supply reduction, not a rebranding, and furthermore, SATA SSD storage becoming harder to buy could kick off panic buying with system builders and businesses that still rely on the SATA interface, which would increase prices considerably, notes MLID.

MLID also compared the Samsung situation with Micron's recent decision to nix its Crucial consumer RAM brand, that he said is largely symbolic in terms of market impact. Micron, as well as SK hynix and Samsung, supply DRAM memory chips to all third-party brands like G.SKIL, ADATA, Corsair, and others.

Micron DRAM will continue to be installed into consumer PC products through other manufacturers, so overall supply won't be impacted all that much. In comparison, Samsung halting its SATA SSD production removes an entire class of finished consumer products from one of the world's largest suppliers of NAND. MLID says that Samsung's move is much "worse" for consumers, as it will directly affect how many drives are available, not just who sells them.

In the future, MLID says that industry forecasts suggest pricing pressure will ease again once DRAM manufacturers move towards the consumer space again -- most likely in 2027-2028 -- driven by local AI workloads and next-gen PlayStation and Xbox consoles that require super-fast SSDs and huge amounts of RAM.