Memory prices going up

[DashCamUser123]

Due to high demand for AI, manufacturers are switching their priority to fulfilling AI demands first while consumer needs are taking a backseat. I see memory prices have gone up quite a bit especially for the higher end models. Have you found this to be the case when buying SD cards for your dashcams?

I purchased a Sandisk 256gb MAX Endurance for $60 CAD in July 2025 on Amazon Canada (shipped from Amazon and sold by Top Select). The price today from the same vendor, shipper is $150 CAD.

Even if you factor in Amazon special sales events later in the year like Prime Day and Black Friday, the current pricing is still quite the increase.

EDITED March 31, 2026 to add:
No sale on micro-SD cards during Amazon Spring Sale in Canada at least not on the high-end models I'm interested in. Will have to wait until Prime Day and Black Friday. I didn't wait though, so purchased 2 more Viofo Industrtial Strength 512Gb for $175 CAD each which I previously paid only $129 CAD each (bought 2 at the $129 CAD price back in 2025).

My thinking was, yes it's $45 more expensive now but if I wait, the price can go even higher (based on the Sandisk MAX Endurance going up from $60 CAD in 2025 to about $150 CAD in 2026). If I spread the extra cost of $45 over 3 cards, I'm only paying a little over $140 CAD each per Viofo 512gb memory card. The mind likes to play justification tricks sometimes 🙂

And I was worried that the Viofo $175 CAD 512gb card may go up even higher later in the year. I have 4 now so I'm OK. Plus plenty of Sandisk High Endurance cards (512gb, 256gb, 128gb etc.). Yeah, I have a lot of action cameras (3 X GoPro, 7 X Akaso, etc.). Many of my previous GoPros (at least 5 of them starting with the GoPro Hero 3) all went kaput over the years when used as dashcams (the sun, heat, cold). Nothing like a dedicated dashcam.

 

[kamkar]

Just checked a price indexing site here ( price runner ) and while prices have fluctuated on some models of 256 Gb memory cards i did not notice a upward trend on their prices for the 3 months back i can see there.
I checked 3-4 new / relevant 256 GB memory cards, 2 of them had a completely flat price line for the past 3 months.

This graph is for the new Sandisk creator memory card in 256 Gb, price in Danish Kronor.
As you can see for a while this card was 2 X more expensive than it is now at 239 DKkr / 37 USD

Using these price indexing / comparing sites, is a big +
Amazon i am not so sure, generally i try my best to avoid this vile company ( as in long before the Americans elected a insane leader )

 

[Vortex Radar]

Prices have gone up pretty dramatically, maybe 2x compared to where they were like a year ago in some cases. There's also no discounts on them right now during Amazon's Big Spring Sale.

 

[mentadent]

It's likely to go up for 18 months more, eek.

 

[kamkar]

January 7 i got parts for a PC upgrade in that a Kioxia Exceria Plus G4 Series LVD10Z002TG8 2 TB SSD hard " disk " ( M.2, PCIe Gen5 x4 NVMe, TLC )

I paid 315 USD for it back then and today it cost 304 USD

I think there is a fire sale going on over there, and everyone just making one last money grab before the ship sink.

I will say, the price of go juice ( gasoline ) is up here, and it was already / as always expensive in Denmark. ( 9.3 USD/Gal )

On a side note, in the same order i had Corsair Vengeance DDR5-6400 - 32GB / 2 X 16 GB - CL32 - Dual Channel Costing 184 USD back then ( model # CMK32GX5M2B6400Z32 )
The same today in the same shop is 646 USD, though cheapest spot here is now 585 USD for the same two RAM blocks. 😱

 

[lufa6977]

Fortunately, I am fat, dumb, and happy with memory... for a while, anyway. I am seriously considering going with spinning platters for my Studio backup. Much cheaper to do this, and I can reclaim
a SSD memory drive to use elsewhere, if needed.

 

[kamkar]

Indeed, for just about anything i can easy wait for spinning steel, but for c: i like something snappy and OMG this new computer is
My old C: drive is now my game drive, and since i got 1 game and people not really making games worth a damn anymore, i think that 4X4 M2 drive are fine even if it is just 256GB

Also have a 2 TB spinner, but just have not gotten around to installing it in the PC, i am contemplating getting a HDD dock so i can just plop the naked drive into that if / when i need it.
I haven’t even connected my external 1 TB Spinner drive, i have a feeling it would change my boot time from 5 seconds to a lot more.

The SSD while not super fast it is still.

Sequential Read 10,000 MB/s

Sequential Write 8,200 MB/s


Faster than anything but the RAM itself in my PC i assume

It would take a very special new dashcam with one of the latest very special and fast memory cards , a new very fast card reader to saturate my c: drive ( got two USB 4 ports ready to go )

 

[DashCamUser123]

Sony is suspending memory card orders due to shortage.

Sony suspending memory card orders due to shortage

A Sandisk 512gb High Endurance micro-SD card I paid $65 in 2025 now costs around $180 on Amazon Canada, almost 3 times the cost.
A Crucial X10 2TB external SSD drive cost $210 CAD in 2025 and is now $360 CAD on Amazon Canada. (some 3rd party resellers are known to drive up pricing).

 

[DashCamUser123]

Just checked Amazon Canada. The Sandisk 256gb MAX Endurance now sells for $234 CAD. I only paid $60 CAD in 2025. That's almost a 4 X price increase.

 

[Vortex Radar]

Mac Mini’s have been in really high demand due to people wanting to run AI tools at home like OpenClaw. Basic models you can sometimes find in stock if you look around, but if you want something with a lot of RAM to run a local model, delivery times are around 4 mo out.

 

[kamkar]

with a lot of RAM

I am good, hell just in my kitchen window sill i have 48 Gb lying around.
I actually downgraded in RAM with my new computer down to 32Gb again


Right now cheapest 256Gb sandisk MAX endurance is 179 CAD here, but early FEB it was down to half of that for a short while.

 

[lufa6977]

Apple is a tough read at the moment. They originally killed the 512GB upgrades. In short, it was better to sell 16 units with 32GB of memory than 1 unit with 512GB. They have also discounted a lot of M4 products deeply. The current view is that while memory prices drove Apple to do these memory restrictions initially, they are also keen on releasing the M5 lineup in June. It is speculated that Apple wanted to save memory for the M5 lineup and reduce the inventory of the M4 products.

Nonetheless, even if memory prices stabilize, memory will still be too expensive for most of us to make a casual purchase. We will really need a reason to purchase memory at this point.