Buy now or wait? SD card prices are shooting through the roof – here’s how to navigate the ‘memory crisis’

SD and micro SD cards have been reliable, cheap memory for years, but prices have shot through the roof in 2026. You can thank a 'global memory crisis' – a perfect storm of an AI 'memory tax', production pivot, strategic underproduction, and increasing component costs.

Take the standard SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO SDXC Class 10 V30 UHS-I card. As recently as Black Friday last year (November 28 2025), it cost less than £20, with a record-low price of £14 the previous year. Guess how much it costs now? Around £50 at the time of writing.

I've included a price tracker chart below for said card, and the 2026 price increase of approximately 100% is typically lower than most other standard-speed and capacity SD cards.

If you're in the market for a high-speed, high-capacity SD card, price hikes are even more extreme, up to 300%. That's ...