Storage prices spike

USB flash drives and memory cards that were bargain accessories in 2025 are now selling for roughly double, and sometimes triple, their old prices. (finance.yahoo.com) A PCWorld price check published April 15 and picked up by Tom’s Hardware found a median increase of about 123% to 124% across USB drives, Secure Digital cards, and micro Secure Digital cards sold on Amazon. The biggest jump in its sample was a 256 gigabyte Lexar Blue micro Secure Digital card, up 261% from its 2025 low. (finance.yahoo.com) (tomshardware.com) The same table showed broad increases across brands and capacities, not just one niche product line. A 512 gigabyte SanDisk Ultra Fit USB drive rose from $35.88 to $79.99, and a 64 gigabyte Lexar Professional Secure Digital Extended Capacity UHS-II card rose from $15.00 to $48.08. (finance.yahoo.com) These products use NAND flash, the same kind of storage silicon that sits inside solid-state drives. When chip makers steer more output toward higher-margin enterprise drives, the lower-bin chips used in removable storage get tighter and more expensive. (finance.yahoo.com) (trendforce.com) TrendForce said on April 1 that enterprise solid-state drive demand and cloud long-term contracts were pushing supplier quotes higher, and it described a “severe supply gap” in legacy multi-level cell NAND in 2026. On April 16, DRAMeXchange, a TrendForce service, still showed active flash spot pricing updates, including double-digit session gains for some multi-level cell parts. (trendforce.com) (dramexchange.com) That squeeze is reaching buyers outside the data center. ExtremeTech reported April 15 that many 512 gigabyte USB and micro Secure Digital products now cost about twice what they did in 2025, and that some speed grades and capacities are getting harder to find. (extremetech.com) Camera gear shows how far the market has moved up the price ladder. SanDisk’s new 2 terabyte Extreme Pro Secure Digital UHS-II V90 card is listed at $1,999.99 on SanDisk’s site, while the lower-speed 2 terabyte Extreme Pro UHS-I card was cited by Tom’s Hardware at about $440. (sandisk.com) (finance.yahoo.com) Lexar has argued for a cheaper fallback instead of denying the trend. A Yahoo syndication of the Tom’s Hardware report said Lexar Europe General Manager Grace Su said the company had prepared lower-capacity and lower-performance drives to give buyers a lower-priced option. (finance.yahoo.com) For shoppers, the old rule that removable storage gets cheaper every year has broken down in 2026. Until NAND supply loosens or demand from cloud and artificial intelligence buyers cools, the tiny cards in cameras, phones, and keychains are likely to keep carrying data-center-era prices. (extremetech.com) (trendforce.com)