It sounds conspiratorial to say it seems like they are trying to crash the consumer market so that computing will be entirely dependent on their services, but I mean…
HDD prices spike as AI infrastructure and China's PC push collide — hard drives record biggest price increase in eight quarters, suppliers warn pressure will continue
Submitted 3 weeks ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
4am@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
It’s because the average USA citizen is economically irrelevant. The money is in the to 10% and the big corpos, especially AI with all the money sloshing around there. The 90% consumer market doesn’t matter as much these days.
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
As the wealth divide continues to grow, the richest will continue to care less and less about the rest of us. We believe in our foundational myth that they’ll always need us somehow, even as they go out of their way to make it utterly obvious that they won’t be happy until they can replace literally everything us dirty poor working class people do. When they no longer need us, they will start to dispose of us. Arguably, they’ve begun doing that already. War is good for business, and for population control.
paultimate14@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s classic rent seeking. We will own nothing, just lease a low-powered client device from our phone carrier or ISP and do everything in the cloud with AI.
That seems to be the plan from these megacorps anyways.
ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I think that seems obvious.
They want to make their services cheaper for them to run, and they want to sell them for more money, while buying up hardware so nobody else can compete with them or not depend on them.
phx@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I was thinking on that yesterday.Mass local storage affordable? No no no, better to drive those prices way up so that we can sell you “cloud” services instead.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
My company is needing to go away from external storage for local only backups, as 2,4" 4TB HDDs are shit and unreliable and 4TB SSDs (like Samsung T5 Evo) are going from 200€ to 600€ (per disk. And we need 3 of those).
Instead we are pivoting to S3(-compatible)-Cloud as the main off-site storage.
I am certainly not thrillee but on the otger side, customers arent willing to lug around 3,5" HDD cases so…What else is there?
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
They are trying and they are succeeding. But the bright side is - it’s about resources. Storage, computation. You can run most useful things on an RPi. I suppose home PC market will become more similar to 80s again. Less power, more dreaming.
Nastybutler@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Guess I waited a hair too long to pull the trigger on a NAS setup
GhostlyPixel@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
My thoughts exactly, but it’s only going to get worse :/
iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I needed to buy another 20TB drive. I paid 100$ more for THE SAME MODEL i bought two years ago.
muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
All of this just to automate the process of enslaving the world.
AreaKode@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Due to “human rights” laws, we have to pay the slaves these days!
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
In Antique Mediterranean it was pretty common to pay slaves. They needed money to feed themselves, after all, buy clothes and tools, do other stuff. Would be a bother to manage centrally for the owner, and you didn’t have to fear social condemnation of slavery, it was normal. So slaves were just like lifelong employees, except they were slaves. Slave teachers, slave scientists, slave engineers, slave artists.
9point6@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Optical drives next I guess lol
What’s even going on anymore
ArfArfWoof@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
I read news of SATA SSDs spiking in price just a few hours ago. Gonna go to sleep now, expecting a spike in floppy disk prices when I wake up and punch cards tomorrow evening.
not_that_guy05@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Didn’t Samsung say that they weren’t making consumer Sata ssds anymore? Jfc we really are going to the whole “you own nothing”.
Empricorn@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
Enshittification, but on a massive scale.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
resulting in cheapflation, and shrinkflation eventually.
villainy@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m saving up now to afford the lease on a nice certified pre-owned Dell in a couple years. My buddy Dave works over at the dealership so I should be able to lock in a good rate. And hey, with their super lease-to-own options maybe I’ll be able to keep it at the end! That’d be nice you know… something to hand down to the kids when they’re old enough for their computing license. Fingers crossed! 🤞
einlander@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
We’re going backwards in time. Computers use to cost multi thousand dollars and you needed a loan to buy one.
vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
A function of popularity. There are common tides that raise all boats - roles of things in the economy.
We’ve had a wonderful period where home computers were the place where many things happened.
Now it’s supposed to be ending (supposed by people who hope to have the awesome power), but I don’t think it’ll end.
A home computer is a wide term. One can remember the times and places where those didn’t even necessarily have HDDs, and people were joggling floppies with two drives attached. Perhaps a bit of ascese and small mobile media, like floppies (not floppies, of course, just something cheap to produce), as the alternative to big immobile media, like HDDs and SSDs and so on, would be good to reinvigorate home computing. Some kind of very cheap memory cards tossed around like paper sheets. The whole operating system loaded once and not requiring permanent media while running. As it happens in Star Wars EU, I think UX is an important part of any technology, and the world moves after Star Trek UX, while Star Wars UX seems smarter for me. Perhaps when SW is as old as ST, we’ll see improvement.
OK, this was incomprehensible. I meant that the limitations on components’ prices coming now are also an opportunity for development. Everything non-corporate in culture is being pressed out from the ecosystem. That’s good, reduces the incentives to play along with that ecosystem.
I’ve read a few articles on optical base for computers and companies working on that. That’s a thing that allows lesser degree of miniaturization, but far bigger frequencies (due to latency in optics) and more distributed production (gigantic foundries like TSMC make less sense).
So we might eventually (100 years perhaps) have two very different computing cultures, one for those people owning huge DCs and pushing “content” from their centralized systems to terminals carried by suckers, and the other for what I’d want. Including production, standards and everything.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I wish all of our infrastructure weren’t built around needing computers. I’m lucky my small community is typewriter-friendly, so I can get most of my daily tasks done without ever getting behind the wheel of a mouse.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Dude.
Fuck ALL of this.
God fucking damnit seriously.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve been putting off building a new pc. More and more it looks like my 10 year old machine has got a few more years left in it.
tyrant@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I just built an am4 machine from mostly old parts I had kicking around. Was happy I went a little to crazy a few years ago. No way I’d of been able to do it with prices now
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Yeah, my trick is to save up and try to buy the 2nd best components as much as possible. The very best will always have a shiny new thing tax attached to them, but 2nd best is where the real value comes in. Granted I’m not building gaming pcs, so this isn’t too unreasonable. The current market won’t let me get close to what I’d actually like though.
AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
my HDD with 80k power on hours is gonna have to keep kicking for now I guess
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Same with my 4x 16TBs in my NAS.
God I hope it will craah only once the bubble bursts to high heaven and a disk costs 20% of the current MSRP :|
fox2263@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I was waiting for them to come down in order to get another for my NAS. Now they’re gonna go up again instead. Fuck me
tal@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
This isn’t a huge increase. It’s not on the order of what just happened with RAM.
According to a report from Digitimes Asia (quoting Nikkei), HDD contract prices jumped roughly 4% quarter over quarter in Q4 2025.
network_switch@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
As others, my basic home lab NAS plans are grounding to a stop because of worsening prices. Next up, phones are going to be even more expensive. Video game console price increases again
Hamknight@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m just gonna say, check out shucks.top, just got two 14tb drives for 160 each.
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Are they used HDDs? Nothing worse than buying something that’s on the brink of dying.
Hamknight@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Nope! They’re brand new shuckable (you can take our the hdd) external drives. I’ve have 10 14tb drives in my bad that all came from this. And if you keep the enclosures, you can still warrenty them.
themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Used HDD aren’t on the brink of dying some them could last decades.
Diurnambule@jlai.lu 3 weeks ago
Thanks I didn’t think of doing that. I have sole hard drove to replace the difference on price is 50% for some huge sdd. I found this link, is it hood info or ai slop ? quickharddrive.com/…/653/
vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I’ve trusted this site for a long time. shucks.top
Hamknight@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s def Ai, but it seems well curated and the info looks pretty reliable. I go for the western digital drives myself, they seem to have the best reliability. To pop them open it’s just plastic clips, and once you get the corners to pop you can usually pull the rest by hand.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
If they are SMR, they are basically DOA (for my use case)
Hamknight@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
None of the WD 14tb have been SMR as of yet. Neither have the two 18tb drives I’ve shucked.
CtrlAltDefeat@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Like 2 years ago that was just a normal price ffs
Baguette@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
How tf are hdds going up in price
Did the data centers somehow buy up all the sdds and decided nah we need more, lets buy up all the hdds too
Like ???
At this rate i gotta start grabbing my old drives to reuse because apparently 2010 equipment is back on the plate or smth
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
It’s all about the Pentiums!
shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Remember when being able to buy a PC was semi-affordable? That was nice. Now it’s transitioning into a luxury product.
dustyData@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
For the vast part of the world, that is not the us or the EU, a Pc, specially a very powerful one like for gaming, has always been an expensive luxury item. You’re just joining the club late.
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
You guys are turbo fucked now though. I guess I’ll keep my video game consoles going because at least they will always be able to play games; especially all my older ones
titanicx@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Dude that steam machine going to end up costing $5,000 for a $500 pc.
Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
If they already got the supplies, they could leverage the situation in their favour
titanicx@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
You know they haven’t.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
4% is hardly a spike in the scheme of things. That’s just inflation when things aren’t really coming down in price any more.
I bought a drive a year or so ago and was surprised how expensive it was. At some point the price just stopped dropping. Presumably there’s a limit on how cheap you can make a spinning rust drive before it just doesn’t work any more.
Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one 3 weeks ago
Lol, only 4%. Ram more than doubled.
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Really?
CAN’T WE HAVE NICE THINGS FOR * ONCE* (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻)
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
First SSDs and now HDDs too?
Zorque@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Well if you can’t get SSDs, what are you going to use for storage? I doubt tape drives are best as daily drivers.
fleton@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
My old pack of floppy drives is going to make me rich!
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
prepare yourselves, nerds! buy your woodworking and farming tools now before those go up too!
if we all just turn off from the internet and technology in general, AI won’t have content to steal from or a market to sell it to.
this is the way.
FreddiesLantern@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
Theory: the push to get everyone and everything on clouds where they can control it just “happens” to coincide with this development.
sturmblast@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Great, now computers in general are just going tu o be stupid expensive
AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Is this like the last wave before the entire thing collapses or what?
Agent641@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Oh my sweet summer child
Wigglesworth@retrolemmy.com 3 weeks ago
Hosting a federated site on calculators and old gaming consoles to become trendy
Grass@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
fuck I need to replace a drive in my nas soon but I’m already broke
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It seems like I’ll soon have to use my DVD burner yet again. Now only if I found one for my ThinkPad, as it’s one of the last models that still had an option for it.
bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Guess im keeping add my dvds and vhs tapes then
Wooki@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Economic policies will start shifting to inflation reducing by raising interest rates. This is purely inflationary in all economies and it’s hilariously going to tank stock trading.
voytrekk@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
The bubble cannot burst fast enough. I’m tired of these higher hardware costs because of a feature that nobody wants.
frunch@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
My fear is that this is only going to become the new pricing floor. Someone suggested that these companies are going to systematically scoop up nearly all remaining tech in an attempt to sell cloud computing etc as the only option for the average consumer (due to lack of affordable or perhaps even available tech)…
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out they don’t want us having any access to our own computers etc because they can only control so much of what we can do with them.
anomnom@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I think digital fascism is a likely motivator at this point. The ceos have all been hanging out with the political fascists, so there’s not much reason to think otherwise.
undeffeined@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I’ve also seen this perspective online and I really hope it’s just a theory and not reality.
Zeoic@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s not really something that no one wants though… Lemmy is loudly against it, but in real life we have tons of people actually asking for it all the time. Hell at work they had to setup a company AI provider account because people using their own subscriptions was happening too much.
Prove_your_argument@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
IT departments are under a lot of pressure by business leadership to have AI offerings. Most businesses are asking to implement a buzzword, not solve any kind of business challenge.