Several high-capacity solid-state drives (SSDs) have grown so expensive that, when measured by weight, they now cost more per gram than pure gold. The phenomenon was highlighted by users on Reddit and quantified in a compilation reported by Tom's Hardware, which compared retail prices and availability for specific SSD models.
The review focused on NVMe SSDs using PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 interfaces with capacities of 8 TB and 4 TB. To make the comparison consistent, drives that had active cooling or large heatsinks were excluded. Analysts checked official retailer listings for prices and availability, then calculated a price-per-gram figure. Because the average NVMe stick in the sample weighed roughly eight grams, the researchers compared the cost of the drive to the cost of the same weight in gold.
The results showed that most 8 TB NVMe SSDs in the sample now retail for more per gram than the equivalent weight of gold. Typical retail prices for those 8 TB drives ranged from about $1,200 to $2,400, while the same number of grams of gold was valued at roughly $1,100 in the comparison. By contrast, the majority of 4 TB models remained cheaper on a per-gram basis, although a few 4 TB drives nevertheless exceeded the price of gold.
The report also noted a clear pattern in which lower-cost models—those designed for bulk, archival, or cold storage—tended to remain relatively affordable, while drives engineered for sustained performance, endurance, and active workloads have seen faster and larger price increases.
Industry observers attribute the price rises to strong demand and tightening supply of key components. A shortage of certain types of memory and controller chips emerged late in the year after large-scale purchases by operators of neural-network training data centers. The same supply pressure has affected multiple PC and server components, including graphics cards, system memory, and other semiconductor-based parts.
For buyers the implication is straightforward: if capacity at the lowest cost per terabyte is the priority, cheaper mass-storage SSDs remain the best option; but for high-performance use cases—workloads that require higher endurance, sustained throughput, or lower latency—expect to pay a premium while component shortages and elevated demand persist.