Against the backdrop of AI demand and HDD shortages, the demand for QLC enterprise SSDs has surged, and NAND flash prices are expected to rise by 5-10% in the fourth quarter of 2025.
🟧The Big Picture of NAND Flash Price Increases
He pointed out that due to the shortage of HDDs and the expansion of demand for AI servers, the rapid demand shift towards QLC SSDs has led to price increases. This will cause the market to fluctuate more than expected, and prices are expected to rise in all categories.
- SanDisk took the lead and announced a 10% price increase, and Micron stopped quoting.
- QLC (Quad-Level Cell) is a method that stores 4 bits in a single cell, and can achieve higher density and lower cost than TLC (3-bit) and MLC (2-bit).
- Demand for enterprise SSDs (over 120TB) is growing rapidly, and inventory levels are below the healthy range.
🟧HDD shortage and AI boom shake up the market
While production cuts and inventory compression in the first half of 2025 have restored market equilibrium, the shortage of HDDs has boosted demand for SSDs among cloud operators. In particular, QLC is suitable for the massive data storage required by AI servers due to its dramatic increase in storage density, and it has an advantage in terms of cost efficiency. However, as the number of bits stored in a cell increases, the rewrite durability decreases, so it is essential to combine it with technologies such as ECC and wear leveling in enterprise applications.
Against this backdrop, QLC adoption is steadily expanding, albeit cautiously, fueling the overall tight supply and demand in the market.
🟧Summary
It indicates that the NAND flash market will enter a 5-10% price appreciation phase through the fourth quarter of 2025. This is due to the shortage of HDDs that have boosted demand for SSDs, as well as the growing adoption of QLC SSDs for AI servers.
In the future, the extent to which QLC reliability will improve will be an important point that will determine the growth of the enterprise storage market.
