The ongoing AI boom has noticeably increased the demand for large storage media. There are also delivery bottlenecks from previous production cuts. All of this results in rising prices for end customers.
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The days of cheap storage media have come to an end for the time being. SSDs have been becoming more expensive again for a few months now and the development does not stop at classic hard drives. As Western Digital is said to have revealed to business partners, there will be a price increase across the entire range. It looks similar with other manufacturers.
Western Digital is therefore faced with unusually high demand, triggered by the never-ending AI hype. In addition, production was reduced by around 20 percent last year in order to counteract the very low market prices at the time.
This creates an expensive combination of high demand and low supply. How much prices will actually rise in the coming months remains to be seen. The Taiwanese website TechNews speaks of 5 to 10 percent in the current quarter alone, referring to industry insiders.
There are ultimately two options for end customers. Either strike now before it becomes even more expensive, or wait until the storm has passed – whenever that is. You can of course find a large selection of hard drives at ALTERNATE!
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