A surge in demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers is triggering an unusual price spike in the enterprise SSD (eSSD) market. On the 14th, industry sources said the benefits of expanding AI infrastructure have spread beyond high-bandwidth memory (HBM) to NAND flash, sending prices of some high-spec products soaring to the level of a passenger car.
SSDs (solid-state drives) are storage devices that use NAND flash. They are tens of times faster than HDDs (hard disk drives), which spin magnetic disks, and consume less power, making them a core part of AI servers that must process massive data in real time.
According to the Flash Volatility Index compiled by storage solutions company Vdura, prices for 30-terabyte (TB) TLC (triple-level cell) enterprise SSDs rose from about $3,000 (about 4.46 million won) in the second quarter of last year to around $17,500 (about 24 million won) in the first quarter of this year. That is nearly a fivefold (472%) jump in one year. Market research firm TrendForce said enterprise SSD prices rose 53%–58% in the first quarter from the previous quarter, the biggest increase on record, and forecast that a "memory shock" will continue in the second quarter as contract prices for NAND flash climb another 70%–75%.
This phenomenon is seen as a sign that the storage market structure is being reshaped around AI, beyond a simple supply-demand imbalance. AI servers demand high-capacity, high-performance SSDs far more than general-purpose products, and limited NAND production capacity is concentrating on higher value-added products, forming a structure that is lifting overall market prices.
On top of that, HDD supply conditions are acting as another variable. Demand for long-term archival "cold data" is increasing, but a slowdown in the HDD market's growth has delayed supply expansion, raising procurement burdens across storage. Recently, prices for 24TB HDDs jumped from about 740,000 won to around 1 million won in just a few months. As the price gap per capacity between SSDs and HDDs has widened to at least 22.6 times, a "hybrid storage" strategy that uses both media in parallel to cut expense is spreading again.
This is a strong tailwind for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, which rank near the top of the global eSSD market. According to TrendForce, Samsung Electronics holds the high value-added market with a share of about 33.8% last year, and SK hynix (including Solidigm) with 30.2%. In particular, SK hynix's subsidiary Solidigm expanded sales of ultra-high-capacity products and turned profitable, posting about 1.3915 trillion won in operating income for the year. Brokerages say the operating margin of the NAND institutional sector could top 60% in the second quarter and surpass the profitability of HBM.
Cloud service providers (CSPs) and data center operators, by contrast, are facing higher expense burdens. With storage procurement costs surging, some are readjusting infrastructure investment plans, which could lead to upward pressure on cloud service pricing. An industry official said, "As long as demand for AI servers continues, the shortage centered on high-capacity SSDs will persist for the time being," and added, "Given the physical time needed to expand NAND production, price volatility is likely to remain high."