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It seems like no industry is safe from AI industry hardware over-adoption and the resulting memory shortages. Hard drives are the latest ones to see price rises, with ComputerBase research suggesting the most popular high-capacity HDDs are now close to 50% more expensive than they were just four months ago. Although that data largely comes from European sources, Tom's Hardware suggests the problem might be even worse in the US.
Memory and storage prices have skyrocketed in recent months, with some DDR5 kits jumping from less than $100 in summer 2025 to over $300 at the start of 2026. Some NVMe SSDs are now worth more than their weight in gold.
ComputerBase has been tracking hard drive prices for several months now and found that the Seagate IronWolf NAS HDD 4TB model has gone from $94 in September to $132 in January, a 40% increase. The Seagate Barracuda 24TB model was $308 in September, but now it's just under $500, a 60% rise. Other models from Toshiba and Western Digital are similarly affected, with the largest tracked price rise around 66%.
The most affected models are those with larger capacities. That suggests increased enterprise demand is driving up prices, but it could also be down to the more limited availability of components used in the drives. We've heard rumors of shortages across everything from glass cloth to PCB drill bits.
Numbers from Tom's Hardware paint a similar picture for US markets. Here, the Seagate IronWolf 4TB drive was $70 in 2023: Now it's $100. The 8TB model was $130 last year, but is now $200.
Even these price hikes stand in stark contrast to memory and SSD price rises, though. ComputerBase highlights how Crucial's 32GB Vengeance Grey UDIMM kit was $118 just a few months ago, but now it's just shy of $480. As for SSDs, Kingston's NV3 1TB SSD is up close to 150%, from a mere $50 in September.
In short, storage and memory are an absolute mess right now. If you think you can go a year or two without upgrading, it might be advisable to try. If you think you might need an upgrade before then, though, do so before prices get even worse.