does that only include SSDs, or does it include HDDs as well?
It includes all forms of storage except for USB devices, GPUs and high end CPUs. The latter you can still get but you're going to have some severe sticker shock.
Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
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Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#12does that only include SSDs, or does it include HDDs as well?
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Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#13There's clearly easy/irrational money distorting the markets here. Normally this wouldn't be a problem: prices would go up, supply would eventually increase and everybody would be okay. But with AI being massively subsidized by nation-states and investors, there's no price that is too high for these supplies. Eventually the music will stop when the easy money runs out and we'll see how much people are truly willing t…
Regardless where demand comes from, it takes time to spin up a hard drive factory, and prices would have to rise enough that, as a producer, you would feel confident that a new hard drive factory will actually pay off. Conversely, if you feel that boom is irrational and temporary, as a producer you’d be quite wary of investing money in a new factory if there was a risk it would be producing into a glut in a few years.
Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#14This is the consequence of "I don't want to write this function myself, I'll get the plagiarism machine to do it for me"
I honestly think it's not that simple.
The ones who spend billions on integrating public cloud LLM services are not the ones writing that function. They are managers who based on data pulled out of thin air say "your goal for this year is to increase productivity by X%. With AI, while staffing is going slightly down".
I have to watch AI generated avatars on the most boring topics imaginable, because the only "documentation" and link to actual answer is in a form of fake person talking. And this is encouraged!
Then the only measure of success is either AI services adoption (team count), or sales data.
That is the real tragedy and the real scale - big companies pushing (external!) AI services without even proof that it justifies the cost alone. Smooth talking around any other metric (or the lack of it).
Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#15Is this for NVME only or spinning drives too? I use both, but I actually have use cases for HDDs and hope those are less affected.
Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#16I bought 6x refurbished ultrastars for ~$100/ea Black Friday 2024. They were over $200/ea 2025. Samsung T7 (and shield) SSD’s have 2x-3x. Can’t get 1TB for less than like $180 right now. It’s ridiculous
Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#17This is all basically a textbook example of irrational market decisions. There’s clearly a bubble and not enough money coming in to pay for the AI bonanza.
It’s building materials being in short supply when there’s obviously more houses than buyers. That’s just masked at the moment because of all the capital being pumped in to cover for the lack of actual revenue to pay for everything. The structural mismatch at the moment is gigantic, and the markets are getting increasingly impatient waiting for the revenue to materialize.
Mark this post… in a few years folks will be coming up with creative ideas for cheap storage and GPUs flooding the market after folks pick up the pieces of imploded AI companies.
(For the record, I’m a huge fan of AI, but that doesn’t mean I don’t also think a giant business and financial bubble is about to implode).
Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#18Is this for NVME only or spinning drives too? I use both, but I actually have use cases for HDDs and hope those are less affected.
All I know is I saw most of my go-to refurbished enterprise HDD’s 2-3x during Black Friday a few months ago compared to a year prior.
Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#19does that only include SSDs, or does it include HDDs as well?
I read it as both, but UK suppliers have stock of various SATA HDDs available in large and small sizes. It's hard to say if prices will rocket or availability decline, or both. I don't normally advocate panic-buying, but if it's needed now is the time. I have one NAS spare on hand, I don't want or need a drawer full of them, but it'll be a royal pain if I do and can't get parts.
Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD
#20There's clearly easy/irrational money distorting the markets here. Normally this wouldn't be a problem: prices would go up, supply would eventually increase and everybody would be okay. But with AI being massively subsidized by nation-states and investors, there's no price that is too high for these supplies. Eventually the music will stop when the easy money runs out and we'll see how much people are truly willing t…
Loved the reference. Probably from Margin Call[0]