SSDs used to be an affordable part of building a PC, but that is starting to change. One of the most popular drives on the market, the Samsung 990 Pro 1TB, has seen a major price increase, showing the current problems affecting the SSD market.
Samsung 990 Pro 1TB Sees Massive Price Increase
According to data from Overclock3D and price records from PCPartPicker, the Samsung 990 Pro 1TB has jumped sharply in price over the past year.
In 2025, the drive cost around £86.99. Now, the price has reached £159.99 in the United Kingdom. This represents an increase of nearly 84%.
Because of this price jump, this older PCIe 4.0 SSD is now priced close to newer PCIe 5.0 models. In fact, the Samsung 9100 Pro (PCIe 5.0) currently costs only about £9 more than the 990 Pro.
This suggests that the problem is not related to the controller or the interface, but to the cost of the raw material used in SSDs: NAND memory.
The reason for these rising prices is linked to the rapid growth of artificial intelligence. The expansion of AI data centers has pushed manufacturers to direct much of their NAND production toward enterprise storage solutions.
As a result, the consumer market is left with limited supply and higher prices.
This shortage affects high-capacity drives even more. For example, 8TB SSDs can now reach around £900, which shows how extreme the situation has become.
Because of this, buyers now have to think carefully before upgrading their storage. Some may choose to wait and hope prices drop again, while others might buy now before prices increase even further.
