Lenovo's latest ThinkBook laptops are now featuring SSDs manufactured by Chinese company YMTC (Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp.), a notable shift from the more common Samsung, Western Digital, or Kioxia components. This development, reported by Notebookcheck, highlights the increasing impact of the ongoing global memory and NAND shortage on laptop manufacturers.
The YMTC 512 GB SSD found in a review unit of the Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G9 IPL exhibited sequential read and write speeds of 3950 MB/s and 2514 MB/s, respectively. These figures are considered below average for an SSD in an office laptop context. It is likely that Lenovo opted for YMTC drives due to lower costs, a strategy that allows the company, and potentially others, to mitigate the rising expenses of components while continuing production.
YMTC, founded in 2016 with significant government backing, is a relatively new entrant in the NAND flash market. Despite this, the company reports a global workforce of over 8,000 employees and was valued at $22 billion last year. Broader adoption by non-Chinese brands could solidify YMTC's position in the global market. However, for consumers, the inclusion of these drives means an additional specification to scrutinize when purchasing a laptop, potentially accepting a performance trade-off for cost savings.