Memory Prices After a Year of Crisis: RAM Up 370%, HDDs 134%, SSDs 129%

The twelfth measurement date fell a week and a half ago. ComputerBase has been tracking RAM, HDD and SSD prices in a monthly rhythm since mid-September 2025, and the current reading is the balance of a year: system memory 370 percent more expensive, hard drives 134 percent, SSDs 129 percent against 15 September 2025. RAM now stands at a new high, HDD and SSD keep climbing, only more slowly. The monthly readings before it: plus 345, plus 129, plus 126 percent.

The RAM curve is not a straight line. It had a January high, a recovery in spring, and since midsummer a climb to the record. Method: best prices in German retail, eBay resellers excluded. (Quelle: ComputerBase memory price monitoring, chart through 16 September 2026)

Product prices behind the average

The index figure is the sum; the arithmetic adds up per product. A Patriot Viper VENOM 32 GB DDR5 kit stood at 87 euros in September 2025 and at 449 euros on 16 September 2026, plus 417 percent. Corsair's Vengeance RGB 32 GB went from 126 to 549 euros. Kingston FURY Beast in the 64 GB version, the one bought for server memory and workstations: 213 euros in September 2025, then already 1,036 euros in August 2026. The pocket change of the NAS world, the Seagate IronWolf with 8 TB, went from 156 to 345 euros. The Kingston NV3 with 1 TB, long the default cheap SSD, has gone from 50 to 144 euros, plus 189 percent.

Manufacturers boom, buyers pay

Read from the manufacturer side, the same year looks like a boom. CXMT reports 874 percent more revenue and, for the first time, a profit in the billions. YMTC intends to overtake Samsung and SK Hynix with a massive NAND expansion by the end of 2027, according to its own plans. The memory that consumer electronics can no longer afford, the AI data center industry buys at a multiple, and market researchers expect a particularly strong price jump in consumer DRAM for Q3, per ComputerBase, precisely because the manufacturers have converted their production to server products.

Add to that the two reports showing how the industry is reacting to the shortage: Kioxia is about to start sampling a CXL Memory Module meant to replace part of the DRAM in servers with flash, and Apple, after the old iPhone models, has now touched the Mac mini: the M6 model costs 50 percent more than its predecessor. When even Apple writes price jumps like that openly into its price list, the shortage has outgrown negotiation.

heise and c't explain the mechanics behind the curve: HBM ties up DRAM capacity, DDR4 is being phased out, and what that does to prices for consumer memory.

Austria: the index measures somewhere else

The ComputerBase index is German best prices. Anyone procuring in Austria compares against Geizhals.at and Idealo.at, and there the picture is: the direction is identical, the prices are not. Depending on retailer, bundling and stock position, the Austrian best price sits above or below the German one, sometimes clearly, sometimes barely. Anyone who buys by the index instead of by their own comparison portal pays too much in the wrong place, or credits themselves with price declines their own market never delivers.

The procurement math, honestly

What the twelve monthly readings mean for the purchase list, without panic and without waiting.

Replacement parts due within the next two quarters are cheaper today than they will be the day after tomorrow. The curve had its high in January, its recovery in spring and the steepest stretch after that. Anyone who has watched an NV3 price of 50 euros become 144 stops postponing RAM and SSDs for systems in service.
Platforms with a DDR4 socket are aging in the right direction. Memory upgrades for machines that do not support DDR5 turn out to be a way of avoiding depreciation rather than plain stinginess.
Compute that saves RAM beats compute that eats it. On inference and database servers the operating bill decides, and that bill shifts every quarter toward RAM poverty; see KV cache on host RAM and quantization.
Do not take prices from a distributor list price. Check them twice a quarter on two independent portals, because between list and street this year lies more than the usual percentage.

On hope the arithmetic stays simple: no all-clear has a date. Kioxia still has to deliver the samples it promises, YMTC and CXMT are building their fabs for 2027, and the Q3 price jump arrives before that. A maintenance backlog cannot wait for that all-clear.