Hold on tight to that newly purchased T710 or X10 of yours, for that’s going to be the last Crucial SSD you can find.
Indeed, in a shocking move, Micron today announced that it will exit consumer-grade products to focus on the enterprise space, effectively retiring its long-standing Crucial brand. To put it in street lingo: you will soon no longer be able to find Crucial SSDs, portable drives, or RAM in stores worldwide.
Crucial dies in the age of AI
It’s an understatement to call the news surprising.
In the past couple of years, in my opinion, Crucial has been doing so well and has become one of the most, if not the most, popular brands for RAM, NVMe SSDs, and portable SSDs, edging out Samsung, which used to be the most significant player in consumer-grade flash storage.
In fact, the Crucial T700 and T705 are the first internal NVMe drives that helped make PCIe Gen 5 relatively popular today. Prior to that, a dozen or so Crucial SSDs made PCIe Gen 4 the mainstream standard.
And we shouldn’t overlook the fact that, for almost 30 years, Crucial has been the only US brand that sells system memory and flash storage devices.
So the question is, why now?
Micron didn’t provide a clear answer to the exit, but Sumit Sadana, EVP and Chief Business Officer at Micron Technology, offers this telling statement:
“The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments.”
Translation: Due to the memory demand of generative AI, Micron no longer has the capacity or, more likely, the interest in providing consumer-grade storage products. It makes more money by providing RAM for rapidly growing data centers built to support AI.
Data centers generally don’t have a significant need for flash storage as traditional platter-based hard drives are fast enough while providing much larger storage space at significantly lower cost.
Come to think about it, this move from Micron is similar to how Western Digital’s decision to split off Sandisk earlier this year to focus solely on hard drives. Both happen because of AI. The difference, however, is the fact that Sandisk now exists a separate company, while many of those working for the Crucial brand will likely lose their jobs.
On this front, Micron says that it “intends to reduce the impact on team members due to this business decision through redeployment opportunities into existing open positions within the company.”
How about us, the consumer?
With Crucial exiting the market, consumer-grade flash storage will lose significant competitiveness, as the brand has been known for its friendly pricing. That said, in the foreseeable future, the cost of RAM, SSDs, and portable drives is likely to increase.
For now, Micron says it will continue shipping its Crucial hardware until the end of February 2026. It’ll also provide continued warranty service and support for Crucial products worldwide. This exit doesn’t affect the sale of its Micron-branded enterprise products to customers globally.
In other words, if you want to keep the Crucial brand for a long while, as a souvenir or because you like the hardware, get those SSDs and portable drives today. It’s safe to do so.
The takeaway
If you find the news upsetting, you’re not alone.
So far, AI has caused significant disruptions, not in a good way, including the deaths of numerous online media companies that could no longer generate enough views and clicks to sustain themselves. Their demise was sad but understandable.
In Crucial’s case, its death seems to stem from the fact Micron will make even more money by no longer serving the general consumer. So, it decided to drop the ball to focus on AI, a new technology that, so far, has generated lots of money for a few, with little positive impact for the rest.
I’d call it capitalism.
