Rising external SSD prices push buyers toward DIY enclosures and older drives

Tom's Hardware tested older hard drives, SATA SSDs, and NVMe SSDs in several external enclosures and found that reused drives can still deliver practical performance, especially when paired with the right interface. A SATA SSD remained far faster than a portable hard drive, while an older PCIe 3.0 NVMe model came close to dedicated 10 Gbps and 20 Gbps external SSDs. At the high end, a PCIe 5.0 drive in a USB4 enclosure reportedly matched or exceeded some premium retail options. The article matters because it frames current external SSD pricing as unusually expensive and positions enclosure-based builds as a way to avoid some of that inflation. That does not change NAND supply directly, but it does show how elevated finished-drive pricing is influencing buyer behavior and extending the useful life of older storage hardware. For RamTrend, the clearest takeaway is that price pressure in external SSDs is strong enough to shift demand toward reuse, enclosures, and lower-cost component combinations.