PC hardware vendor PNY suspends Black Friday storage deals — cites rising NAND costs and says 'no new deals are being put in place'

As the AI-driven shortage of NAND tech continues to bite and enthusiasts chart 100% price increases on RAM for their builds, popular PC hardware vendor PNY has confirmed that it is suspending its upcoming Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions on flash USB storage, citing rising NAND costs. In a possibly devastating sign of a price squeeze and shortage to come, the company says no new deals are being put in place ahead of Black Friday.

PNY had previously announced a series of deals rolling out across November, with early November savings of up to 60% on some of its top USB products. For instance, its Elite Turbo Attache 4 64GB USB 3.2 Flash Drive is currently just $7.99 at Best Buy instead of $19.99. All of the discounted products planned for November were USB Flash drives of one description or another, ranging from cheap low low-capacity options to up to 1TB of 600MB/s storage.

Tom's Hardware was contacted by a third-party PR representative of PNY on November 10, who advised us that the deals shared on behalf of the company were no longer valid. Crucially, we were also told that no new deals are being put in place on these products. Some of the early discounts of up to 60% are still being offered on Best Buy's website, so this seems to indicate that the further discounts on these products planned for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend are no longer on the cards. Some of those planned reductions were discounts as high as 70%. While some remain on sale at previous discounts, others have returned to MSRP at Best Buy. PNY was not immediately available when approached directly for comment.

The sweeping suspension of an entire brand's worth of USB storage deals could be a bellwether of tough things to come for consumers. Notably, if NAND shortages are trickling all the way down to flash drives, the impending market crunch could be worse than first thought. While Early Black Friday deals aplenty can be found on a new gaming chair, peripherals, monitors, and components like some GPUs and CPUs, the best SSD deals and memory savings are a little softer. As per our previous coverage, enthusiasts trying to build PCs on popular hardware forums are charting price increases on DDR5 kits of 100% or more. In one notable case, one beleaguered builder cited that the 64GB Kingston FURY Beast kit they'd marked out for their build is now more expensive than the Ryzen 7 9700X CPU it was being paired with.

It is impossible to say which immediate factor may have driven PNY's decision to suspend its Black Friday sales. It could be that the company is worried it doesn't have enough stock to sustain it through the holiday season, or it could be a preemptive move to ensure flash drive stock remains heading into the New Year. It is also unclear whether there will be any knock-on effect on PNY's supply of consumer SSDs, including its new CS3250. We continue to await comment from PNY and will update this story accordingly.

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