Apple SSD Supplier Hit With Contamination Disaster, Flash Storage Prices Expected to Spike
SSD prices are likely to increase globally due to contamination issues at Western Digital and Kioxia's NAND production facilities, and Apple devices may be affected (via TrendForce).
Western Digital says that it has lost 6.5 exabytes worth of BiCS 3D NAND flash storage due to use of contaminated materials at two of its plants in Japan in January. The facilities are jointly run by Western Digital and its partner Kioxia, which was previously part of Toshiba. What caused the contamination and when production is expected to resume has yet to be confirmed.
Western Digital and Kioxia are among the world's leading SSD suppliers, with their joint production amounting to around 30 percent of the entire NAND flash market. TrendForce's market research indicates that the price of NAND, which is the main component of SSDs, could spike by up to 10 percent starting in the second quarter of 2022.
Western Digital and Kioxia primarily offer SSD and eMMC storage drives for PCs, but iFixit teardowns have shown that Apple uses Kioxia NAND chips in many of its products, including the iPhone 13 lineup, the iPad Pro, and the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Whether any existing Apple products manufactured with Kioxia storage in January will need to be recalled is currently unclear.
Many of Apple's Mac SSDs have been supplied by Samsung in recent years, but the company has increasingly turned to custom storage solutions, culminating in the proprietary SSD components on Apple's M1 Macs being soldered in place.
If Apple devices are not directly impacted by contaminated Kioxia hardware, it is still possible that a tightening of supply across the industry could drive up Apple's costs, but whether the company will absorb these price rises or pass them on to consumers is yet to be seen.
Popular Stories
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect.
There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect.
The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design.
It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information.
Relocated Charging Port
While the Magic Mouse switched from...
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent.
A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things.
Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Facebook was all about staying connected with friends and family. However, as the social media platform added new features and grew over time, that core experience began to get drowned out.
That changes starting now, according to Meta, which today introduced a new feature that will "bring back the joy" of classic Facebook.
Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
Apple's upcoming "iPhone Fold" will feature a foldable screen with a 4:3 aspect ratio, according to a Chinese leaker who previously leaked the book-style device's display dimensions.
The Weibo-based account Digital Chat Station claims that Apple will adopt a "roughly" 4:3 aspect ratio on the inner display in order to achieve consistency between the outer display, as well as to ensure parity...