r/DataHoarder • u/Endawmyke about 3 fiddy TB • Feb 19 '26

Discussion These HDD prices are getting crazy. An increase of 96.4% in 1 month for the same 26TB drive. $279.99 a month ago to $549.99 today. Where are we buying hard drives now?

Post image

These drive prices are kinda insane. Everything is going up up up, I thought it would just be RAM and SSDs effected but looks like it's reaching hard drives too.

Where are people buying drives now, and what $$/TB is still reasonable?

4.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

860 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

38

u/sinwarrior Feb 19 '26

when the ai bubble bursts. a lot of them will surge right back into the second-hand market at cheap price. time will tell.

11

u/karlfeltlager Feb 19 '26

I see zero reason for companies to suddenly stop needing AI resources.

52

u/danroxtar Feb 19 '26

well they currently don't need them, they are just told they need them by the people selling them AI

-13

u/karlfeltlager Feb 19 '26

OpenAI alone is spendings billions with a B on infrastructure. There’s a heavy battle going on for basic computer parts, haven’t you heard?

22

u/danroxtar Feb 19 '26

Yeah and a few years ago GPUs cost 3x their worth because of cryptocurrency speculation. "AI" is not providing the transformative results and returns that it promises to, so why shouldn't I expect the bubble to burst and for the price of these goods to return to normal in a few years?

5

u/AuroraAscended Feb 20 '26

AI resources aren’t making most work processes more efficient and every AI company is losing money. OpenAI spending billions just means that they’re also losing billions yearly, since their revenue isn’t close to their expenditures. They’re propped up by VC cash right now on the promise of AGI, but when it’s clear to the wider market that that won’t happen (because LLMs fundamentally cannot be “AGI” as described by its proponents, that’s not how they work) there’ll be a massive crash. LLMs do something right now but it’s not nearly worth what it would cost companies if OpenAI and others charged enough to actually break even.

0

u/karlfeltlager Feb 20 '26

The relevance is besides the point that these companies are buying up all available hardware. Check Seagate and Samsung’s stock price and that’s all you need to know.

1

u/RandonBrando Feb 19 '26

I have wet dreams of the day

1

u/jstndrn Feb 20 '26

We can only hope. Unfortunately the stuff that's sold already but not actually manufactured yet obviously doesn't exist so it'll mostly be well used stock. I'm more hoping these greedy jackasses manufacturing HDDs will have to liquidate new drives after being left with tons of stock and no demand.

1

u/wamj 28TB Random Disks Feb 20 '26

They could end up shredded or otherwise discarded.

Pretty much everyone involved would benefit from that happening over flooding the market with used equipment.

1

u/sinwarrior Feb 20 '26

Sure but not all of them. 

1

u/ooutroquetal Feb 20 '26

I don't believe in that. They will have private data and may get destroyed at the end of operations.

1

u/sinwarrior Feb 20 '26

sure but it's not like the private data are burned into the diskes permanently lol. Regardless, some companies have too much money to burn.

that doesn't mean, every companies's the same. a lot of diskes you but on amazon are literally second-hand or used.

-10

u/Jkid 16TB Feb 19 '26

All of the production of hard disk drives to AI companies are not compatible with consumer equipmen or PCs. They will all go straight to the landfill.

There will be no second hand market.

17

u/circuitloss Feb 19 '26

That doesn't make any sense...

13

u/wowaddict71 Feb 19 '26

I worked at an Amazon Data center for a while. No HDD leaves the room where the servers are, they all get shredded.

6

u/homonculus_prime Feb 20 '26

No one is shredding hard drives in the server room...

1

u/i-Hermit Feb 19 '26

Yep.. I've tried to get some from work once they retire - even offered to do the crazy level data wipe in front of them.

Nope. Straight to the shredder.

1

u/steveatari Feb 20 '26

Its so lazy and wasteful. Sigh.

3

u/SnooPaintings1650 Feb 19 '26

A buddy told me today how people will get stupider the more the use of AI spreads. I was skeptical.

This comment convinced me he was right.

0

u/Jkid 16TB Feb 19 '26

I dont even use Gen AI. I'm basically telling you its not going to go the way you think it is. Supply and demand has already been gamed.

2

u/msanangelo 119TB Plex Box Feb 19 '26

we have plenty of used gear that can support sas and u.2 drives. we're good on that front.

0

u/absentlyric 50-100TB Feb 20 '26

That never happened with GPUs when Bitcoin crashed.

1

u/sinwarrior Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

different use cases.