If you’re thinking of buying flash memory like SSDs for your computer or as an external drive, you might not want to take too long to decide. This is because according to an announcement by Western Digital, it appears that the company has experienced a factory contamination.This has affected the company’s operations at Yokkaichi and Kitakami where the flash memories are being fabricated. According to Western Digital, “Western Digital’s current assessment of the impact is a reduction of its flash availability of at least 6.5 exabytes. The company is working closely with its joint venture partner, Kioxia, to implement necessary measures that will restore the facilities to normal operational status as quickly as possible.”
For those wondering, 6.5 exabytes is about 6.5 billion gigabytes and it is estimated by TrendForce that this contamination of the memory could result in the price of NAND flash to increase by about 5-10% in Q2 2022. This is because presumably Western Digital will no longer be able to use the contaminated components, which could result in temporary shortages and a spike in price due to there being less supply than demand.
We’re not sure how badly this will affect average consumers, but as Western Digital is one of the bigger players in the memory industry, 6.5 exabytes is certainly not a small amount to sneeze at, but hopefully they will be able to resolve this and get production back on track ASAP.
Filed in . Read more about Western Digital. Source: arstechnica