Micro Center lists 8TB WD_Black SSD at $2,419 MSRP, real price tag up 50% since October — pricing surges on high-capacity SSDs in response to AI demand

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The canary in a coal mine that's currently on fire.

WD Black SN850 SSD
(Image credit: 3DTested)

RAM prices have been surging for the past two months, but behind the scenes, prices on SSDs have silently crept up, as well. There's no better evidence of that than two 8TB drives on display at Micro Center. The 8TB WD_Black SN850X is listed at a suggested retail price of $2,418.99, while the PlayStation-branded SN850P is listed at $2,757.99.

The outrageous price tags were shared by @MMatt14 on X. Although we can't verify that Micro Center actually listed these prices, they line up with the suggested retail pricing on Micro Center's website. The good news is that Micro Center isn't actually selling these drives for above $2,000. The SN850X is available for $900 at 8TB, while the SN850P is available for $1,100, assuming you have a Micro Center close enough to pick up your SSD in person. This is likely an error in labeling from inside a Micro Center store.

Prices on lower capacity drives have gone up, as well. The 2TB SN850X has gone from around $150 in October to $270 today. The value-packed Crucial P3 Plus (rest in peace, Crucial) launched at just $62 for the 1TB version, and you could find it for that price two months ago. Now, it's listed for $220.

We've seen the brunt of AI demand with DRAM prices over the past couple months, causing a pricing surge that could last for years. NAND flash has also seen a significant increase in demand despite getting far less limelight. Last month, TrendForce suggested NAND prices would increase by double digits in the first quarter of 2026. NAND has seen a sharp increase in demand, similar to DRAM, and NAND producers have pushed up contract prices and allocated limited inventory for 2025 and 2026 already.

SSD prices are likely to climb higher in the coming weeks. According to DRAMeXchange, spot prices on DDR5, although continually increasing, have leveled off with week-over-week price increases around 2%. Wafer prices for TLC NAND have climbed in the range of 12% to 19% week-over-week, suggesting further price hikes are incoming.

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Jake Roach
Jake Roach
Senior Analyst, CPUs
10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • beyondlogic
    behold the market will crash once they use up all the 8tb they will be after the 4tb which ive already seen price increases on those as well.
    Reply
  • Li Ken-un
    Anyone here remember the good old month from 2023 when SSDs hit $32 per TB (almost $0.03/GB)?

    These prices are now four times that low.
    Reply
  • nookoool
    A 2tb wd black i picked up 3 months ago has over double in price on Amazon. Even regular HD has gone up in prices for the data hoarders.
    Reply
  • hwertz
    Hard disks buddies. 2TB HDD is like $60 (but don't bother geting one that small, HDD pricing is like a base price for the case and electronics, the spinning rust platters and drive heads seem to only add about $10 a TB.). 8TB drives are $160 all day and you can probably find one for less at a good price. 24TB models at a good price are like $280 and you can take your pick for under $350.

    The price per TB DOES shoot up for the largest drives but (unlike SSDS where it shoots up above like 2 or MAYBE 4TB) on HDDs that's like 28-36TB models. (A 36 is around $800 if it's in stock. Just get two 18s and save yourself about $400 at that point LOL.)
    Reply
  • jp7189
    Fwiw, I bought an sn850x 8tb from microcenter in March for 629.99 and one two weeks ago for 799.99
    Reply
  • aberkae
    WD BLACK SN850X 8TB Internal SSD PCIe Gen 4 x4 NVMe WDBB9G0080BNC-WRSN - Best Buy https://www.bestbuy.com/product/wd-black-sn850x-8tb-internal-ssd-pcie-gen-4-x4-nvme/JXJ62CRLST/sku/6593300?utm_source=feed&extStoreId=&ref=212&loc=23229690374&gclsrc=aw.ds&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=23224583640&gclid=Cj0KCQiA6sjKBhCSARIsAJvYcpMwhgX00pJvtqfB62lFmm9NX7jkDJfBGTpls7tjYU1C-gqK3pBZZIAaAk0OEALw_wcB$ 799 sky isn't falling! Wake up!
    Reply
  • Greg7579
    Wow! I bought two of these about ten months ago when they were on sale for 700 bucks each. I use them in an enclosure as back up to my main data drive on my Motherboard, which is this same 8TB SSD. I have three of them - one at 800 bucks I bought before my build and two at 700 bucks for external backups using GoodSync.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    I'd expect prices on NAND to go up more slowly overall, but the ones with the newest NAND to shoot up first. There's a lot of stock when it comes to NAND which should absorb prices for a while and unlike memory people building new systems don't necessarily need new storage like they would more likely need to with DRAM.

    I've been periodically keeping up with refurbished and used enterprise HDD pricing and as soon as that jumped bought some used enterprise SSDs before those inevitably joined in. I ended up spending about $0.57/GB $0.057/GB which while higher than I wanted to was already cheaper than anything on the consumer market.

    It's going to be a rough couple of years and I'd expect storage prices to stay higher longer than memory.

    Edit: whoops fixed price
    Reply
  • Li Ken-un
    thestryker said:
    $0.57/GB
    Yikes. That’s an order magnitude higher than anything I’ve spent on NAND-based SSDs in the past couple years. That amount would be a wait-and-see signal for me.

    My reference points:
    $0.0320/GB was the lowest I’ve seen (new client SSDs)
    $0.0976/GB for a Intel D5-P5316 30.72TB in 2023 (new enterprise SSD)
    $0.0687/GB for a pair of WD 8TB WD_BLACK SN850X in 2024 (new client SSDs)
    $0.0871/GB for a pair of SKhynix BC711 1TB in 2024 (used client SSDs)
    $0.0623/GB for four of the same SSDs in 2025 (used client SSDs)$0.2680/GB for a pair of Micron 7450 PRO 960GB four months ago (new enterprise SSD)
    $0.0937/GB for a pair of Samsung 8TB 9100 PRO last month (new client SSDs)(Every thing else I’ve bought were Optane in various form factors, so not comparable to NAND-based SSDs.)
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Li Ken-un said:
    Yikes. That’s an order magnitude higher than anything I’ve spent on NAND-based SSDs in the past couple years. That amount would be a wait-and-see signal for me.
    Hahaha I screwed up and put the decimal point in the wrong place it's supposed to be $0.057
    Reply