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 andPlayStation 5among 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, butWestern Digitalannounced 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 theiriPhone 13, iPad Pro, and MacBook lineups, triggering rumors about whether products produced in January could be affected by the incident. As of yet, there have been no product recalls linked to this incident.
Gamers and PC building enthusiasts have been dealing with increasing prices for PC components as of late, and this latest disaster won’t help matters. Despite already being sky-high last year,GPU prices continue to rise. DDR5 RAM was also priced out of reach for many gamers, blamed on a supply issue, though there are hopes that increased availability will lead to a decline in price this year. The effects of the Western Digital contamination incident remain to be seen, but it could be bad news for both console and PC gamers looking to upgrade their systems or build a new rig, respectively. With an increasing number of games recommending SSDs for smooth gameplay, foregoing an SSD is not as easy as it used to be.
