The booming development of AI has caused the hardware situation to get out of control: the price of computer accessories has soared, reaching unprecedented high prices. Memory, SSDs, and graphics cards have already been affected, and hard drives may be next.
Western Digital, one of the world's largest hard drive manufacturers, recently said it has sold out of its hard drives and that all orders for this year are fully booked. This is expected to cause hard drive prices to rise soon.
During a recent earnings call, Western Digital CEO Irving Tan was asked about the overall situation in the memory market and its impact on mechanical hard drives (HDDs). He replied that all of Western Digital's HDD inventory was sold to AI Data Center.
"Orders for 2026 are basically sold out. We have signed formal purchase orders with all of our top seven customers. In addition, we have signed long-term agreements with two of them for 2027 and with another customer for 2028."
Western Digital's orders for 2026 are already fully booked, but some of those deals extend even into 2027 and 2028, suggesting the shortage could last longer.
While hard drive prices have increased, the increases have not been as dramatic as those for SSDs or memory. However, with the largest manufacturers already fully booked for this year, hard drive prices are likely to surge further in the future.
