[loeg]

SSDs did not "stop getting bigger a decade plus ago." The largest SSD announced in 2015 was 16TB. You can get 128-256TB SSDs today.

You can buy 16-32TB consumer SSDs on NewEgg today. Or 8TB in M.2 form factor. In 2015, the largest M.2 SSDs were like 1TB. That's merely a decade. At a decade "plus," SSDs were tiny as recently as 15 years ago.

[__david__]

Perhaps my searching skills aren’t great but I don’t see any consumer ssds over 8TB. Can you share a link? It was my understanding that ssds have plateaued due to wattage restriction across SATA and M.2 connections. I’ve only seen large SSDs in U.3 and E[13].[SL] form factors which I would not call consumer.

[loeg]

I'm counting those non-M.2 drives as consumer. But even if you object to that classification, there are 8TB M.2 drives today.

[numpad0]

But the mainstream is still at 500GB-2TB ranges, so...

[jandrese]

The mainstream drives are heavily focused on lowering the price. Back in the 2010s SSDs in the TB range were hundreds of dollars, today you can find them for $80 without breaking a sweat[1]. If you're willing to still spend $500 you can get 8TB drives[2].

[1] https://www.microcenter.com/product/659879/inland-platinum-1...

[2] https://www.microcenter.com/product/700777/inland-platinum-8...