SSD prices in yet more trouble as two of the biggest hard drive makers have already sold out their 2026 stock

Amid soaring SSD prices, slower-but-cheaper mechanical hard drives whitethorn person offered an charismatic reprieve for anyone wanting to embiggen their PC retention connected a – and I cognize it’s progressively hard to usage this connection without breaking down into hopeless laugh-crying – budget. Unfortunately, that astir apt ain’t happening either, arsenic starring HDD manufacturers Western Digital and Seagate person some revealed that they’ve already sold “pretty much” each of their mechanical thrust banal that was allocated for 2026.

As spotted by German tech tract Heise, the admissions (or boasts, depending however you look astatine it) came during WD and Seagate’s respective net calls successful January. WD CEO Tiang Yew Tan said that successful summation to maxing retired accumulation for 2026, "robust commercialized agreements" for 2027 and 2028 are already successful spot with large buyers, portion Seagate’s CEO William Mosley claimed the company’s HDD output capableness is "fully allocated" done the remainder of this year.

Naturally, the bulk-buying of these hard drives – which is already causing shortages and heighted prices for location PC users – is being performed by the aforesaid entities that are driving the ongoing SSD and RAM shortages. Namely, large tech companies wanting to physique and kit retired tremendous information centres from which to tally their AI products, similar those genAI tools that crippled devs hatred and publishers are banning. Cool! This industry-wide unreserved has, for months, been causing a DRAM spot shortage that’s managed to wide knacker PC constituent availability, gouge prices, hold Valve’s caller Steam Machine, and termination disconnected Crucial. Seems we tin adhd hard drives to the database of casualties, a improvement that besides spells much atrocious quality for SSD prices. If mech drives aren’t disposable arsenic a cheaper alternative, that’s yet much request being piled connected SSDs, which would inevitably marque supplies adjacent scarcer and summons prices adjacent heavier.

For now, astatine least, a speedy canter done the Internet shops suggests that hard thrust supplies haven’t yet dried up entirely, and they’re inactive cheaper than equivalent-capacity NVMe SSDs. Still, they are snared successful the aforesaid pricing trap: this 1TB Seagate Barracuda is £80 astatine the clip of writing, but was £52 astatine the extremity of January, and £43 successful December 2025. And with replacement banal having seemingly been flogged to Microsoft and the like, don’t expect that to drift backmost down anytime soon.

I precocious asked immoderate specializer hardware manufacturers, arsenic portion of an upcoming feature, whether they’d counsel PC upgrade seekers to instrumentality the wealth deed present oregon hold until things (hopefully) calm down successful 2027. Responses were mostly mixed, but everyone agreed – arsenic bash I – that if you can keep going with your existent components, SSD oregon HDD retention included, you astir apt should.