Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

mashable.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 328 posts

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#251

Post by Bombthecat »

slashdev wrote: post #203
aurareturn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add that the GPU, CPU, storage, and RAM industries crashed in 2022 after a Covid-induced boom.[0] Everything was cheap. Samsung sold SSDs at a loss that year. TSMC and other suppliers did not invest as much in cap ex in 2022 and 2023 because of the crash. Parts of the shortage today can be blamed by those years. Of course ChatGPT also launched in late 2022 and the rest is history. [0]www.trendforce.com/presscent…

I bet the same thing happens when the AI bubble pops. "but this time is different, it's not a bubble, there's real value there" Economists use the term “bubble” to describe an asset price that has risen above the level justified by economic fundamentals, as measured by the discounted stream of expected future cash flows that will accrue to the owner of the asset. I think there's little argument that is happening, the…

How long did it take for housing to stop skyrocketing?

That's my guess.

Aka: take a seat, it will be a while

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#252

Post by selectodude »

delecti wrote: post #242
selectodude wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the most recent time you could reasonably get an nvidia *80 GPU at the store for a normal amount of money was almost a decade ago.

But that's a tautology. The Nvidia *80 GPU's MSRP has been unreasonable for that long (1080 launched at $600 May 2016, which IMO was already excessive). But there was a window as recently as fall (3-5 months ago) where you could get most PC parts at MSRP. Granted it was a pretty short window, before the last dying whispers of crypto and COVID induced scarcity were overtaken by the surge of the AI bubble.

The 7800GTX was $600 too.

And yeah, fall is when I got my RTX 5080. It was still $1000 and I had no idea how lucky I was when I pulled the trigger. Still felt like I was trawling discord bots though to get a founders edition.

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#253

Post by xnx »

glimshe wrote: post #8

There'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…

> Normally this wouldn't be a problem: prices would go up, supply would eventually increase

Sounds right

> there's no price that is too high for these supplies.

Are you saying even higher prices won't increase supply? I don't understand.

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#254

Post by atemerev »

slashdev wrote: post #203
aurareturn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add that the GPU, CPU, storage, and RAM industries crashed in 2022 after a Covid-induced boom.[0] Everything was cheap. Samsung sold SSDs at a loss that year. TSMC and other suppliers did not invest as much in cap ex in 2022 and 2023 because of the crash. Parts of the shortage today can be blamed by those years. Of course ChatGPT also launched in late 2022 and the rest is history. [0]www.trendforce.com/presscent…

I bet the same thing happens when the AI bubble pops. "but this time is different, it's not a bubble, there's real value there" Economists use the term “bubble” to describe an asset price that has risen above the level justified by economic fundamentals, as measured by the discounted stream of expected future cash flows that will accrue to the owner of the asset. I think there's little argument that is happening, the…

At this point I agree. A bubble starts when everyone stops calling it a bubble.

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#255

Post by 9rx »

Bombthecat wrote: post #251
slashdev wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet the same thing happens when the AI bubble pops. "but this time is different, it's not a bubble, there's real value there" Economists use the term “bubble” to describe an asset price that has risen above the level justified by economic fundamentals, as measured by the discounted stream of expected future cash flows that will accrue to the owner of the asset. I think there's little argument that is happening, the…

How long did it take for housing to stop skyrocketing? That's my guess. Aka: take a seat, it will be a while

Two years. Basically the period when people were stuck at home during COVID restrictions and were willing to spend extra money to make that experience more comfortable. Prices fell precipitously after restrictions were lifted and people had desires outside of the home again.

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#256

Post by xantronix »

Sharlin wrote: post #30
dClauzel wrote: post #2

Good luck to everyone. Home you made some reserve. Yes, AI is nice, but I also like to be able to buy some RAM and drives…

The future is thin clients for everyone, requiring a minimal amount of RAM and storage because all they are is a glorified ChatGPT interface.

Is this an inevitable future? The amount of people ready to cede their computational resources, thinking, digital sovereignty, to centralised platforms, all in the name of progress, is truly shocking to me, especially in the current political moment.

The main reason I do not prioritise AI usage in my own life is to retain my skills and mental acuity. All of the forms of computing and opportunities that I value do not require AI to achieve. I can understand why people feel differently from me, though, because AI and AI-adjacent things are where all of the money is right now.

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#257

Post by zymhan »

xnx wrote: post #253
glimshe wrote: post #8

There'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…

> Normally this wouldn't be a problem: prices would go up, supply would eventually increase Sounds right > there's no price that is too high for these supplies. Are you saying even higher prices won't increase supply? I don't understand.

A comment above yours clearly explains why:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47034480

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#258

Post by tmtvl »

pjc50 wrote: post #112
ghywertelling wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earlier gamers got punished by crypto and now they are being punished by AI.

"Punished" implies a moral valence to the whole thing which isn't there. It's not like the AI companies were aware of gamers and set out to do this. You simply got run over, like everyone else in front of the trillion dollar bulldozer.

"Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Sam Altman. The lawnmower doesn't hate you"?

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#259

Post by rasz »

aurareturn wrote: post #137
runjake wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are indeed planning for more fabs, in order to meet volumes. Last week: “TSMC's board approves $45 billion spending package on new fabs” https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ts...

Silicon Valley is arguing that TSMC isn't investing enough. They should be investing hundreds of billions to build fabs, like how big tech is investing in the AI buildout. $45 billion for new fabs is peanuts compared to Amazon's $200b and Google's $180b investment in 2026. Can't really blame TSMC though. It takes years for fabs to go from plan to first wafer. By the time new fabs go online, demand might not be there.…

> Amazon's $200b and Google's $180b investment

Last time I checked you cant build Chip Fabs with cloud credits.

Re: Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are sold out for the year, says WD

#260

Post by rasz »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #218
pixelesque wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Storing training data: for example, Anthropic bought millions of second hand books and scanned them: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/01/27/anthrop...

All of Annas archive can be put on 40 drives

Not if you "scan" them by recording 4K video of someone flipping page after page, you know to teach multi modal models.
Post reply on HN