You’ll likely already know that tech prices are going up. After all, such is the way in 2024. Don’t get me wrong, every so often, we get some good news. Last month, SSD and RAM prices stopped getting more expensive for all of three weeks before relenting. Now, the costs of SSDs and HDDs are once again rising.
Western Digital sent out a letter stating “higher than expected demand” across its line of flash and hard drive products. Such “supply chain challenges” could be due to many things. The Red Sea crisis continues to impact shipping, and the recent Taiwan earthquake will affect NAND production, for example. As TrendForce reports, however, depleted stock means price rises are inbound.
“Given these circumstances, we will continue to implement price increases on flash and hard drive products this quarter, with some changes taking effect immediately,” WD continues. Samsung or Crucial fans shouldn’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet, though. While the troubles specifically affect Western Digital SSDs and HDDs, other brands likely struggle from similar constraints. Even with production plants elsewhere in the world, the domino effect from WD will put pressure on other industry titans.
According to the original report from TechNews, the prices will go up as much as 20% almost immediately. This is bad news if you’re only just eyeing up a storage upgrade. Should you happen upon a decent offer, now is perhaps your last chance to get a good deal.
WD also explains that it’ll find it challenging to respond to any “unplanned demand” orders. It encourages partners to give plenty of notice and adjust expectations accordingly. For you as a customer, that means SSD availability might get tighter and definitely will get more expensive. It’s not great, so we’d recommend either holding out or keeping an eye on sales, like this 2TB Star Wars SSD. As usual, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for the best discounts out there to save you some pennies.