The First 16TB Internal SSD Hits the Market for $15K

The Exascend Enterprise-Grade PE4 has appeared on store shelves, becoming the world’s first M.2 2280 SSD of this capacity available to regular consumers.

Unlike external SSDs, the Exascend PE4 is an internal drive installed directly into a computer slot and operates via PCIe 4.0/NVMe.

Price: $1000 per terabyte

The biggest headline is not just the capacity, but the price of $15,935, roughly a quarter of the average annual salary in the U.S. Even those who can afford it may think twice before buying.

Top consumer 8TB solutions from Samsung cost about 10 times less while offering higher speeds thanks to PCIe 5.0.

The high price of Exascend is driven by component shortages due to the AI boom and its focus on the enterprise segment, where reliability is valued over affordability.

Technical Endurance

Although the drive runs on PCIe 4.0 (slower than newer standards), its main advantage is durability. It is designed to operate reliably in extreme conditions, such as temperatures ranging from 0°C to 70°C.

The device uses 3D TLC NAND memory and has already won the “Best in Show” award at Embedded World 2025 for combining compact size with record data density.

16TB Is Just the Beginning

While 16TB is currently the limit for the M.2 form factor, the storage industry is preparing for even larger capacities. In the enterprise segment, U.2 drives with up to 256TB from SanDisk already exist.

According to forecasts, Solidigm plans to release 245TB drives by the end of 2026, while Samsung is targeting 512TB by 2027. This makes the Exascend PE4 just the beginning of a new era where massive data storage becomes more accessible.