The race to build and improve artificial intelligence are overwhelming the global market for data storage, leading to critical shortages and impending price increases for essential components. New industry analysis confirms that the intense focus on AI processors is creating a major ripple effect, squeezing the supply of both hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs).
Market research firm TrendForce has released a warning that wait times for the high-capacity hard drives used in data centers have expanded dramatically. Delivery for these specific drives now exceeds 52 weeks, a delay of more than one year that shows the severity of the supply crunch.
This shortage is directly linked to a surge in orders from companies investing heavily in AI infrastructure. In a recent communication to its customers, storage giant Western Digital described “unprecedented demand across its entire product range.” The company announced it will be increasing prices for all of its HDD products, a move it says is required to manage the current market conditions.
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The specific type of storage in shortest supply is known as “nearline.” This refers to storage systems that hold data which must be accessible quickly, but does not require the instant speed of the primary SSDs that run active applications. Nearline is the ideal and most cost-effective home for the massive datasets required to train and operate AI models.
Generative AI, in particular, creates an enormous appetite for this kind of storage. Beyond the content an AI generates, the process requires saving enormous training data, detailed model checkpoints, and extensive operation logs. This data must remain readily available for compliance, auditing, and model refinement, quickly consuming vast amounts of space.
With traditional hard drive supply unable to meet this new demand, large tech firms and cloud providers may be forced to consider a more expensive alternative: using QLC SSDs for storage tasks. While SSDs are faster and more available, they come at a significantly higher cost, making large-scale purchases far more expensive.
Looking forward, chip manufacturers are reportedly designing new SSD models tailored for these nearline roles, which could help alleviate future cost pressures. However, for the immediate future, consumers and businesses should anticipate rising prices across the board for both hard drives and SSDs, particularly for models designed for enterprise and data center use.