pcie gen 4 enterprise nvme ssd ~80% price rise questions

[robx]

So I am very new to the enterprise hardware world but am purchasing server parts now and have noticed over the past 6-8 months the prices for pcie gen 4 nvme drives go up by about 60% or so. I have been watching the prices on both ebay and newegg and the average price for pm9a3 3.84tb drives has gone from ~$150 to ~$270 (used on ebay august 2023) and $300 (wiredzone december 2023) to now $548 (newegg now). CD6 drives have followed similar trend.

Is this some new trend from AI buying up all the supplies or some regular thing to expect that prices sort of go up and down like this? Should prices fall in the future? Seems like pcie gen4 drives should be around for a while even though a lot of the big guys are moving onto the gen5 stuff. Seems like the gen4 stuff should be getting cheaper as well, not more expensive... Is it normal when something new faster comes out, that the older generation price fluctuates this much?

Any insights would be appreciated. Trying to pick up ~30 more drives and not liking where this trend is going. Considering waiting this out because, you know, older stuff should be cheaper....

 

[izx]

The cost of NAND flash memory has been going up since summer/early fall 2023 and that's reflected in used prices too from anyone who's reselling them for profit.

It's not because homelabbers dabbling in AI are gobbling up used SSDs.

Flash memory pricing is cyclical, so used prices will decrease too with the next downturn, but we don't know when that's coming.

 

[Samir]

I think a lot of others have seen the same thing you have. Unfortunately it seems that after covid's rise in price on used components, that cycle has stuck around where at times used stuff that is not near the end of the bathtub curve suddenly jumps in price for what appears to be no reason. I saw this with DDR3 ram, where today it is finally near the lowest lows that I saw pre-pandemic--4 years later!

For us, this 'commodity hardware' has turned into some sort of 'traded commodity' that now has ups and downs like things like fuel futures, pork bellies, etc. afaik there's no real 'index' for the prices as there is on a trading floor (pricewatch.com used to be the closest thing), but that seems to be essentially what's happening--supply and demand or emotion or news pushing prices up and down based on the future and what might happen.

 

[nutsnax]

Price fixing.

 

[Samir]

Price fixing.

That too. Charge whatever you can milk out of them. And then dump at notorious cheap prices when you can't move them and that credit card payment is coming up.

 

[ano]

its a price fixing/wanted thing. heck we were even told up front :|

 

[robx]

Thanks everyone - especially @izx and @Samir - Appreciate the help.

Would your hunches say prices going down anytime soon?

 

[alaricljs]

Who needs a hunch?

Flash storage prices rise by 25% as manufacturers chase profitability | Computer Weekly

Analysis of 30,000-plus drive prices shows cost of flash drives per gigabyte rose sharply since October 2023, as memory manufacturers limit supplies and increase prices.

www.computerweekly.com

 

[Samir]

Thanks everyone - especially @izx and @Samir - Appreciate the help.

Would your hunches say prices going down anytime soon?

I don't watch SSDs as much as I watch HDDs, but I've seen both move downwards in the used market this year. That being said, I think it's at another plateau that won't move until new unit prices also move down which is what caused the used prices to move down. After all, why spend $100 for a used 1TB when they started selling at that price new? That's when I saw the drop from $100 to $50/TB for SSDs. HDDs in smaller sizes can be found as cheap as <$4/TB, but they are more the exception than the rule, the rule being $6-8/TB, higher for larger drive sizes that have less POH. HDD prices for larger drives have largely remained unchanged, just nudging down a hair since you can find deals on enterprise drives <$14/TB, which was tougher a year ago. But the supply for deals for used drives at $8/TB or so have become pretty common whereas they were far less common a year ago.

 

[Samir]

Who needs a hunch?

Flash storage prices rise by 25% as manufacturers chase profitability | Computer Weekly

Analysis of 30,000-plus drive prices shows cost of flash drives per gigabyte rose sharply since October 2023, as memory manufacturers limit supplies and increase prices.

www.computerweekly.com

Pretty interesting article. I think the best part of it was the link to diskprices.com, which I never heard of before and is totally awesome.