Hard drive prices jumped 4 percent compared to last quarter, which marks the biggest spike in two years, and the whole mess stems from data centers gobbling up storage capacity for AI workloads. Big Tech companies are building massive facilities that need exabytes worth of HDDs because storing training data, backups, and inference logs requires cheap bulk storage that only spinning disks can provide at scale.
Manufacturers are running factories at full capacity but still cannot keep up with demand from cloud service providers, especially American ones. Supply shortages could hit regular consumers by next year since HDD makers would rather sell to AI data centers where profit margins look better.
The situation mirrors what happened with AI memory chips, where suppliers started prioritizing corporate customers over everyday buyers once demand exploded.
Manufacturers are running factories at full capacity but still cannot keep up with demand from cloud service providers, especially American ones. Supply shortages could hit regular consumers by next year since HDD makers would rather sell to AI data centers where profit margins look better.
The situation mirrors what happened with AI memory chips, where suppliers started prioritizing corporate customers over everyday buyers once demand exploded.
