Transcend has suspended all SSD production and shipments after losing access to NAND flash chips from major suppliers Samsung and SanDisk, marking one of the most severe supply disruptions the consumer storage market has seen in years. According to company communications sent to clients, NAND deliveries stopped in October, leaving Transcend without the essential components required to build its solid-state drives.
The stoppage stems from a dramatic shift in chip allocation by Samsung and SanDisk. Both suppliers have redirected large volumes of NAND inventory away from consumer electronics and toward AI infrastructure, hyperscale data centers, and enterprise-grade storage systems – segments experiencing record demand in 2025.
As a result, Transcend said it will be unable to fulfill SSD orders for at least three to five months, warning partners that meaningful supply normalization may not arrive until 2026. Industry distributors have already reported significant price spikes due to constrained availability.
The SSD Shortage Emerged
Samsung and SanDisk, two of the world’s largest NAND producers, have been under mounting pressure to serve AI clusters, cloud providers, and enterprise customers requiring massive amounts of high-performance storage. As previously covered, chipmakers across multiple categories – GPUs, DRAM, and specialty semiconductors – have prioritized AI-related demand, squeezing out lower-margin retail buyers.
For NAND flash, the pivot has been even more pronounced. Data centers are rapidly expanding to support generative AI workloads, while cloud operators are rebuilding storage fleets to keep pace with multi-petabyte training datasets. Compared to consumer SSDs, enterprise orders are larger, more predictable, and far more profitable, incentivizing suppliers to reallocate inventory.
Transcend, which relies heavily on third-party NAND rather than in-house fabrication, is particularly vulnerable to such shifts. With suppliers halting consumer-grade shipments entirely, the company has effectively been cut off from the market.
Industry sources say NAND spot prices have surged sharply since October, with some distributors lifting quotes by double-digit percentages in a matter of weeks. That volatility made it impractical for Transcend to continue sourcing components at scale.
Market Impact
The production freeze underscores how deeply AI-driven demand is reshaping global semiconductor supply chains. For consumers and PC makers, the immediate consequence is higher SSD prices throughout 2025, especially in entry-level and midrange segments where Transcend has been a key supplier.
Retail inventories are expected to tighten further in the coming months, and other consumer-focused storage brands may face similar shortages if suppliers continue prioritizing enterprise customers. Analysts warn that the mismatch between AI infrastructure demand and NAND manufacturing capacity could persist well into next year.
Transcend told clients it expects supply conditions to improve only in 2026, when expanded NAND production from major manufacturers begins to come online. Until then, the company will remain dependent on the timing and volume of resumed shipments from Samsung and SanDisk.
For investors, the disruption highlights the increasing bifurcation of the memory market – with AI and data center demand driving record profitability for chipmakers, while traditional consumer electronics manufacturers bear the cost of constrained supply.
