bgelfand Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 I just saw this article about a problem at Western Digital's NAND foundry LINK: Factory contamination affects “at least” 7 billion gigabytes of flash memory | Ars Technica 6.5 exabytes of NAND has been contaminated and is scrapped. According to Blumberg it may be over twice that amount. Coupled with Samsung closing a NAND factory in China due to COVID and we may have a shortage of data cards for cameras as well as flash drives and SSDs. The contaminated NAND is enough to make 7 billion 1GB cards or 28 billion 256 GB cards. Of course, the reduction will not just be flash cards; it will be spread over SSDs, and phones as well as other device that uses NAND memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
q.g._de_bakker Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 Maths? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
q.g._de_bakker Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 Maths? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vilk_inc Posted February 11, 2022 Share Posted February 11, 2022 "that's a lot of NAND" - like "a lot of land" or "a lot of sand"? :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgelfand Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 Maths? Oops! Good catch. Should be 7 million 1 TB cards or 28 million 256 GB cards. Still a lot of cards and that is just WD. Then there is the closed Samsung factory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted February 12, 2022 Share Posted February 12, 2022 Western Digital owns SanDisk. Get ProGrade, Lexar, Sony, Delkin .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgelfand Posted February 12, 2022 Author Share Posted February 12, 2022 Western Digital owns SanDisk. Get ProGrade, Lexar, Sony, Delkin .... I do not believe ProGrade, Lexar, Sony, or Delkin manufacture their own NAND chips. They use chips manufactured by other to make the cards. The large NAND manufacturers are Samsung, Kioxia (use to be Toshiba), SK Hynix, WDC (SanDisk also sources from Kioxia), and Micron. Intel sold their NAND business to SK Hynix last year. When the two largest manufacturers, Samsung and Kioxia, have production problems it stresses the NAND supply chain. ProGrade, Lexar, Sony, and Delkin may not be able to get enough chips to make their cards. At very least prices should increase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glen_h Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 Not long ago, I tried to buy an 8GB microSD card, but they are hard to find. I ended up with 32GB. (That was to load new firmware onto a Nook HD.) I suspect that won't change the supply of CF cards much, either. How many 1TB cards do you need? -- glen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDMvW Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 Personally, I'm more concerned about the on-going vowel shortage in the Balkan countries.:rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 (edited) For fun, I just checked B&H's web site. They are listing the SanDisk 128G CFexpress Type B card at $250, which is inflated, but there is current a $130 discount, which is over 50%. I did try to put it in the shopping card. The final cost is $120 plus sales tax. The SanDisk CFx is on the slow side and could be out of favor, but there is clearly no shortage. This is the link in case someone is interested: SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO CFexpress Card Type B Edited March 2, 2022 by ShunCheung Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glen_h Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 For fun, I just checked B&H's web site. They are listing the SanDisk 128G CFexpress Type B card at $250, which is inflated, but there is current a #130 discount, which is over 50%. I did try to put it in the shopping card. The final cost is $120 plus sales tax. (snip) I notice that they also offer 6 month financing. -- glen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted March 2, 2022 Share Posted March 2, 2022 I think CFExpress prices are finally coming down, perhaps due to more competition. Some people are getting Angle Bird cards that are cheaper, but I have no personal experience with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_halliwell Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Sadly, the same card here is the UK, is the same price, ie 250, but in £s not $s, with no discount....:( Although SanDisk are often more expensive, like for like, than Lexar and Prograde, so I guess there's hope....:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CvhKaar Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Prices in Europe will go up probably, since there is no transport trough / over Russia / Ukraine due to Putin's "plans" .. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_halliwell Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 no transport Indeed. I guess such small, light and high value things go by air usually. I suppose they could fly them the other way around! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShunCheung Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Send me some Euros or Pounds. Be happy to ship your some CF Express cards. :rolleyes: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
q.g._de_bakker Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Prices in Europe will go up probably, since there is no transport trough / over Russia / Ukraine due to Putin's "plans" .. They come by ship, large container ships, from China. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike_halliwell Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 They come by ship, large container ships, from China. Interesting. I'd have thought there was a degree of time relevance to high value memory chip supply, not quite like flowers, but....;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
q.g._de_bakker Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 You mean people will not wait five weeks but lose interest and no longer want or need those memory thingies, because it takes that long? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glen_h Posted March 3, 2022 Share Posted March 3, 2022 Interesting. I'd have thought there was a degree of time relevance to high value memory chip supply, not quite like flowers, but....;) This is the problem with supply chain. As long as they are going in one end, and coming out the other end, it doesn't so much matter how long it takes in between. But when that process breaks down, we notice. -- glen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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