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Kingston has unveiled a 30.72TB solid-state drive, but as you can probably guess, it's not for us puny gamers and our storage-starved rigs. Unlike the best SSDs for gaming, the Kingston DC3000ME PCIe 5.0 NVMe U.2 SSD is instead a high-speed PCIe 5.0 NVMe SSD that utilizes 3D eTLC NAND and is designed for a "wide range of server applications such as AI, HPC, OLTP, databases, cloud infrastructure and edge computing," aka, data centers.
The enterprise-level SSD on its own isn't technically new. But its brow-raising 30.72TB capacity, and its boasted sequential read speeds of up to 14GB/s, is a brand new addition to the DC3000ME line-up. Its speeds are so high that we're not even dealing with the typical MB/s (Megabits per second) that I'm used to when I review the latest SSDs, but it makes sense for something that's meant to power up a data center as opposed to letting you play Cyberpunk 2077 uninterrupted. Will it mean older gaming SSDs will finally be free from the data center hoard for the rest of us? I wouldn't keep my fingers crossed.
Versions of the Kingston DC3000ME PCIe 5.0 NVMe U.2 SSD have been around for a while now, just not to the extent of over 30TB. By the way, 30.72TB translates to 30,720GB, which is a mind-melting amount of storage. No matter how ridiculous my gaming backlog is, I don't think I even own that many digital games and documents on my gaming rig - even if you add my digital music and film collection in there too.
If you were hoping that the existence of an enterprise drive this dramatic would mean SSD prices would come back down again, I sadly don't think that's going to be the case. The Kingston DC3000ME enterprise SSD line launched in models up to 15.36TB back in 2025. Even as the cost of storage was just on the cusp of rising, these enterprise-sized solutions have existed.
They're not there as a steadfast alternative to run-of-the-mill gaming SSDs for data centers but instead exist to save space and lower power consumption. The higher the capacity you can get in a single drive, the fewer lower-sized SSDs you'll have cluttering up a rack. According to Sarfraz Khan at wccftec, they also offer "better cooling, and simplifying the cabling process" which would all be pretty handy when it comes to data centers, especially of the AI kind.
Don't worry, I'm disappointed too. Each and any time I see and report on a new SSD release, I only hope it'll mean good news for those of us in dire need of a storage boost. I'd have much rather seen Kingston release a new Gen 4 or Gen 5 gaming drive. That way, there would be a chance for many of us to grab a low to mid-range capacity model for its launch price, without having to give in to re-sellers or pay for double their MSRPs.
Instead, we have 30.72TB drives intended for use by the very culprits behind those price hikes. To make matters worse, Wccftech reported on April 23, 2026, that Kingston and Samsung have notified distributors that SSD prices will increase by at least 10%, so prices are likely only going to get worse from here on out.
I hate being the bearer of bad news, especially of the storage kind, but I am rounding up the best SSD prices each week. There aren't deals per se, but I am trying to gather a varying amount of storage options that are as close to being as reasonably priced as is possible in this day and age.
If you're still curious about the 30.72TB Kingston DC3000ME PCIe 5.0 NVMe U.2 SS, there's no release date or price information available quite yet. Though I did spot the 7.68 TB version for a staggering $3,429.99 at Insight, so I suspect it won't come cheap.
- View all SSD gaming deals at Amazon
Our guides to the best SSDs for PS5, the best Xbox Series X hard drives, and the best external hard drives for gaming are full of storage alternatives for your preferred platform of choice.
