Memory Cards and Flash Drives Prices Rocket 124%, some Products Peak at 261% Jump — Increases From 2025 Driven by AI Chip Shortage Across a Range of Formats and Capacities

Why It Matters

The price surge signals a broader supply‑chain shift that could constrain affordable portable storage for both consumers and enterprises, while highlighting the premium pricing power of high‑end products amid AI‑fuelled demand.

Key Takeaways

• Median price of USB drives and SD cards up 123% YoY
• High‑end 2 TB SD cards now cost ~$2,000, $0.98/GB
• Manufacturers favor premium products over expanding capacity amid NAND shortage
• AI data‑center demand pushes fabs to prioritize higher‑bin NAND chips
• Consumers face limited low‑capacity options, may delay purchases

Pulse Analysis

The current NAND shortage traces back to an unprecedented surge in AI model training and inference workloads that require massive SSD capacity. Chip fabs, constrained by wafer output, are allocating the highest‑bin NAND dies to SSDs that command premium margins in data‑center contracts. This allocation leaves lower‑bin NAND—suitable for USB flash drives and SD cards—scarcer, driving up costs for consumer‑grade storage devices that rely on the same silicon technology.

Retail pricing data from Amazon and CamelCamelCamel confirms the impact: median price hikes of 123% across USB and memory‑card categories, with some products exceeding a 260% increase. In response, brands such as SanDisk, Lexar and Kingston are pivoting to high‑value offerings, exemplified by SanDisk’s 2 TB Extreme Pro UHS‑II SD card priced at $2,000, roughly $0.98 per gigabyte. By focusing on premium tiers, manufacturers can preserve margins while avoiding costly capacity expansions in a constrained fab environment.

For businesses, the ripple effects are twofold. First, higher acquisition costs for portable storage may erode budgets for field teams, IoT deployments, and content creators who rely on affordable high‑capacity cards. Second, the scarcity could accelerate adoption of alternative storage strategies, such as cloud‑based offloading or leveraging internal SSDs for critical workloads. As AI demand continues to grow, the market may see further premiumization, prompting buyers to reassess storage procurement strategies and consider longer‑term supply‑chain diversification.