Unintended concequence of Ai causes hdd price surge

[neurosis]

I don't know if anyone has priced any hdd's lately.  I was looking at some 8tb ironwolf pros recently. Over the last few weeks the price has increased about $70 per drive. 



https://www.trendforce.com/news/2024/04/22/news-ai-boosts-demand-for-high-capacity-hdds-as-seagate-expected-to-follow-with-price-increases/

Due to the demand for high-capacity HDD products driven by AI, coupled with reduced production by hard drive manufacturers, the overall HDD supply is unable to meet demand, leading to soaring prices. According to a formal letter from Seagate to its customers, demand recovery continues across several segments of their business, and the reduced manufacturing capacity is limiting their ability to meet all of their customers' demand and is resulting in longer lead times. Additionally, ongoing global inflationary pressures continue to impact costs.

As a result, Seagate Technology will implement price increases for new orders and demand exceeding previous commitments, and they anticipate ongoing supply constraints, indicating that prices will continue to rise in the coming quarters.

As per industry sources cited by TechNews, there is an expectation of ongoing supply shortages for high-capacity HDD products this quarter and potentially throughout the entire year. The same source also indicates that, HDD prices are expected to continue rising in the second quarter of this year, with increases estimated at 5% to 10%.

[CNCAppsJames]

"...Soaring Prices..."

Well considering I paid more than that for just 8MB of RAM BITD. Cost per GB isn't prohibitive yet.

I'm due to swap SSD's soon. 

[neurosis]

"...Soaring Prices..."

Well considering I paid more than that for just 8MB of RAM BITD. Cost per GB isn't prohibitive yet.

I'm due to swap SSD's soon.

I have a six bay nas and *planned* on putting 8tb drives in.  That would be about $1400 now.

Just two weeks ago it was $900

I guess it's perspective, but that's quite a jump in price.

I haven't paid that much attention to non mechanical drives.  I don't think they make affordable high capacity ssd storage yet? 

[CNCAppsJames]

"Affordable" is relative. 

I think the biggest SSD's run at 3TB. In a RAID Array, you could have 18TB striped, or 9TB mirrored. 

The read/write performance advantages of SSD over HDD are staggering. 

The old argument of "finite read/write cycles" is a what if argument.  Basically if the SSD were running 24-7... readi g andcwriting thw wholetime, ... it would last nearly 10 years. Keeping a computer for 10 years in this day and age is penny-wise and pound foolish IMHO.