Calculating Every PC Component’s Resale Value – The Unexpected Surprise

Published Apr 29, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT

Dave has a bachelor of arts degree in journalism, and has been writing professionally since 2006. Over the years he's produced content for many global brands, including IGN, PC Gamer, TechRadar and Tom's Guide. His main passions revolve around PC hardware, display tech and gaming.  

Dave is absolutely obsessed with cutting-edge PC technology. He's been building his own rigs since ye olden days of 2004 and has owned an embarrassing number of GPUs over that timeframe. 

When he’s not obsessing over frame rates, Dave can normally be found fretting over dead pixels and OLED burn-in. He first fell in love with OLED displays in 2015, and has spent the ensuing years obliterating his bank balance buying “Light Emitting Diode” screens. 

In his off hours, Dave can normally be found sweating unbearably over Arsenal results. He might take footba… sorry “soccer”, a little too seriously.

It’s currently a grim time for PC hardware enthusiasts. Almost all of the key components in a PC that cost more than my car that I assembled a year ago, now cost considerably more than when they first launched. GPU prices are obscene, and the cost of RAM is absurd. Yet there’s one key PC part that I’m borderline shocked has become so much more expensive.

Said component is SSD storage. Whether we’re talking about portable SSDs or high-end NVMe drives, solid-state storage prices have escalated to unreasonable prices. And, surprise, surprise, the blame falls on AI.

Let me break down why SSDs are currently so prohibitively expensive, before giving you a rundown on how much more my current storage options have increased in price. Hopefully, this will help you make an informed decision about whether to take the plunge on a new SSD.

Related

As with RAM shortages, AI is to blame

Those data centers need all the storage

This will make me sound older than Stonehenge, but back in my day, SSDs used to be cheap. And to be clear, said day was a couple of years ago. As is the case with the currently massively overblown prices in the RAM market, the surge in corporate interest in artificial intelligence has also significantly skewed the cost of storage.

AI data centers are buying RAM and SSDs in bulk to train LLMs. In other news, I’ve heard a malicious rumor that water may, in fact, be wet. The AI servers in these hubs also require up to ten times more storage than traditional servers, and thanks to the gargantuan amount of computational power they need, only ultra-fast SSDs will cut the mustard, not HDDs.

With companies hoovering up colossal amounts of storage, demand for SSDs has predictably gone through the roof … then subsequently shot past the ozone layer. We’re currently in an era of unprecedented demand for certain computer parts. Demand for SSDs has widely outstripped what is practical in terms of supply. After all, manufacturers like Samsung can’t just will new factories into existence to produce these components at the drop of a hat.

Unless the corporate world suddenly decides that the risks of AI outweigh the financial benefits of cost-cutting, manufacturers will continue to prioritize supplying data centers with storage solutions over consumers.

NAND in NAND

Demand for NAND skyrocketed in a flash

If you’re not down with your tech acronyms, NAND stands for “Non-Volatile Storage.” NAND is an integral part of how SSDs function, as this type of flash memory allows them to store data permanently without power. In essence, it means your solid-state drive doesn't instantly forget your data the second you power down your PC or laptop. And if your SSD is quietly failing, this free tool can help before it takes your files.

As a crucial component of how modern SSDs function, NAND prices have predictably remained completely stable, with nary a change in cost due to external AI factors. And if you’ll believe that, can I possibly tempt you with these oh-so delicious magic beans?

NAND storage solutions are composed of tiny cells that can be packed together tightly — in turn, this allows the likes of NVMe SSDs to provide huge amounts of storage in a super-svelte form factor. Such is NAND memory’s importance to how SSDs operate; the cost of this type of flash storage has doubled in certain sectors of the tech industry.

As manufacturers continue to pivot towards serving big companies’ storage needs, which often involve creating large-scale enterprise storage systems rather than consumer SSDs, the demand for NAND during the current AI boom isn’t going away anytime soon. That means SSD prices are unlikely to drop in the near future.

Is now a good time to buy an SSD?

Absolutely not, but prices don’t look like dropping anytime soon

Brace yourself for a spoiler that’s hardly on the level of Bruce Willis buying the farm during The Sixth Sense without realizing it: it’s really not a great time to invest in a new SSD. For context, let me run you through the NVMe drives that are currently installed in my PC in terms of what they cost at launch compared to how much they’ll set you back at the time of writing.

When I bought my main drive back in late 2023, my particular Crucial T700 model cost me $449 — and I still say that buying a 4TB NVMe SSD is the best PC investment I’ve ever made. Skip forward a few short years, and that said colossal drive would cost me $582 on Amazon. It only gets worse from here on out.

Sticking with listings from The Big, I paid $310 for a 2TB Sabrent Rocket 4.0 Plus in late 2020 (still a mighty impressive Gen4 PCIe NVMe). If I were to try to purchase said SSD from Mr. Bezos now, the only listing that’s currently in stock would fleece my wallet for $997. Ouch.

Even the teeny 1TB Mini NVMe 2230 Gen4 SSD I bought to upgrade my Steam Deck OLED’s storage last year has catapulted in price.

My 2TB WD_BLACK SN850X has hardly become a value proposition since I took the plunge on this Gen4 NVMe back in the summer of 2022. Then, it cost me $190. Now, I’d be looking at an outlay of $365 during an Amazon sale, or a gobsmacking $851 MSRP if it’s not. Double ouch.

Even the teeny 1TB Mini NVMe 2230 Gen4 SSD I bought to upgrade my Steam Deck OLED’s storage last year has catapulted in price. You’ll have to bear with me as I do some GDP to USB conversions, but in 2025, this super-portable drive cost me £71/$96. That same piece of storage is now priced at £180/$243 here in my native Blighty.

The kicker is that the SSD-heavy demands of supplying AI data centers appear to have irrevocably changed storage prices. I obviously hope the SSD market settles going forward, but currently, there’s no guarantee of that. If you want a new SSD but are balking at the prices, you might have to bite the bullet.

SSD prices may not drop for a long time

Not to end this feature on a downer that's up there with the head-in-the-box surprise of David Fincher's Seven, but every AI-driven market metric right now says it's unlikely SSDs will get cheaper in the near future. A rampant corporate desire to feed AI data centers means manufacturers are focusing on satisfying Big Tech over the little consumer, and that's bad news for your bank balance if you need a storage upgrade. Hey, I told you it wouldn't be a happy ending.

Crucial T700 NVMe SSD

The Crucial T700 is a high-end PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD designed for extreme performance, delivering ultra-fast data transfer speeds for gaming, content creation, and demanding workloads. Available with an optional heatsink, it maximizes sustained performance and supports Microsoft DirectStorage, making it ideal for next-generation PCs and high-speed storage upgrades.