--- title: "AI Boom and Memory Shortage: Why Hard Drives Have Disappeared from Shelves and Prices Have Soared by 50%" description: "πŸ“‰ Global Hard Drive Shortage: Seagate and WD have sold out capacity until 2028 due to demand from AI giants. HDD prices have soared by 50%, and the price hike has spread to SSDs. πŸ’ΎπŸš€" date: 2026-06-16T16:12:41.000Z lang: en url: https://xab.info/en/posts/ai-boom-and-hard-drive-shortage-prices-soar tags: [] publisher: "XAB.info" --- # AI Boom and Memory Shortage: Why Hard Drives Have Disappeared from Shelves and Prices Have Soared by 50% ![WD Red 6TB hard drives amid memory shortage due to AI boom](https://xab.info/media/2026/06/16/defitsit-zhestkikh-diskov-ceny-vzleteli-iz-za-ii/defitsit-zhestkikh-diskov-ceny-vzleteli-iz-za-ii-1.webp) The computer components market is facing a new wave of crisis. Following the global shortage of memory and processors, which has become the norm in recent years, hard disk drives (HDDs) have now come under fire. A situation that seemed stable has changed drastically: production is sold out for years to come, and prices for end consumers have soared by 50%. Behind this is not just a logistics glitch, but a fundamental shift in demand structure driven by the artificial intelligence boom. ### The Hidden Crisis: Capacity Sold Out Until 2028 According to sources in the supply chain in Taiwan cited by DigiTimes, the availability of HDDs in the market deteriorated sharply in the second quarter of 2026. Wholesale prices rose by 10% over the quarter, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. The industry's main players β€” Seagate and Western Digital β€” have effectively closed their production capacity for the current year, and in some cases for the next two years as well. As early as February 2026, during earnings calls, company executives confirmed the lack of free capacity. Tiang Yu Tan, head of Western Digital, stated that the company is fully booked with orders until the end of 2026. Moreover, long-term contracts have already been signed for 2027 and 2028. Seagate CEO Dave Mosley added that the company has almost no free capacity left for the next two years. According to industry sources, a similar situation is unfolding with the third major manufacturer β€” Toshiba. ### Who is Buying All the Drives? Hyperscalers and AI The reason for the frenzy is the rapid growth in demand from data centers associated with the development of artificial intelligence. The main buyers of all available volumes have become hyperscalers β€” the largest operators of data centers and cloud platforms, such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI. These giants require colossal storage volumes for training data, logs, backups, and archives. According to analysts, almost the entire HDD output is now oriented towards clients with long-term contracts. There is almost no free capacity left for medium and small customers. The cloud segment's share of Western Digital's revenue reached 89%, while the consumer segment accounted for only 5%. The market logic is simple: in terms of price per volume, the hard drive remains the cheapest way to store large data sets. For comparison, solid-state drives (SSDs) cost 16 times more per terabyte. This is why, despite the technological superiority of SSDs, data centers continue to mass-purchase classic HDDs. ### Consequences for the Average User Despite the fact that hard drives have practically disappeared from personal computers and laptops, the shortage and price hikes have affected ordinary users as well. The shortage is not a temporary glitch but a structural shift in the market that will be felt for several years. Seagate, for example, does not plan to expand production, betting only on increasing the capacity of the drives themselves rather than increasing their quantity. Retail prices are reacting instantly to the situation. According to German retail data, HDD prices have risen by approximately 20–50% compared to mid-2025. Russian media reports a price increase since September 2025 averaging 46%. Specific examples show the scale of the blow to the wallet: - The popular Seagate BarraCuda 24 TB model, which cost around $340 a year ago, has now exceeded $500. - The WD Blue 4 TB model, which cost around $70–80, now exceeds $140. ### The Domino Effect: SSD Price Hikes The shortage of hard drives is putting pressure on adjacent markets. Hyperscalers, facing an HDD shortage, have started purchasing high-capacity SSDs as an alternative. This leads to a redistribution of production capacity and further price increases for solid-state drives. Many SSD models up to 2 TB have increased in price by approximately 50% since the summer of 2025, according to data on Samsung products. Thus, the artificial intelligence boom is creating a chain reaction: from shortages in data centers to rising component prices for home users worldwide.