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AI boom: could SSDs and HDDs become the new graphics cards?

17.9.2025

Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson

The AI boom is driving up the costs for hard disks and SSDs. Manufacturers such as Western Digital and Sandisk have put up the price of server storage media. What’s started in the corporate sector is likely to soon spill over to private customers, too.

First it was crypto mining that turned the graphics card market on its head, then there was the pandemic with its supply chain problems and, finally, Nvidia’s focus on AI. So what now? This time, yet another PC component could be affected by the AI boom: storage media. It’s a trend that could have noticeable consequences not only for server farms, but possibly also for average people.

AI’s insatiable hunger for data

The root of all evil is the exploding demand for what’s known as inference AI servers. These are the workhorses that run AI models that are already trained up. Companies looking to jump on the AI bandwagon are investing heavily in this kind of hardware. And the servers need one thing above all: a gigantic amount of storage space. Space used for data that needs to be accessed regularly, but not necessarily at lightning speed.

This is where good old HDDs come into play. Although they’re significantly slower than their SSD counterparts, they’re unbeatably cheap per gigabyte. This makes them perfect for this type of storage, where huge data sets need to be available for occasional retrieval.

The market reacts: price shock, sea freight and fallback on SSDs

The problem is that demand far exceeds supply. Delivery times for new hard disks are increasing dramatically. A report by TrendForce attributes the development directly to the unprecedented demand for AI servers. Western Digital, one of the largest players in the market, has already reacted by introducing a gradual price increase for HDD products.

At the same time, the company announced it would increasingly focus on sea freight – a step that can extend delivery times by up to ten weeks. Industry sources have stated that delivery times for high-capacity HDDs have now increased to almost a year.

As HDDs are becoming scarce, some companies are switching to SSDs despite the higher costs. SSDs are generally intended for scenarios that require constant and fast access with low power consumption. In response to this shift in demand, Sandisk has also announced a price increase of ten per cent on SSDs. Meanwhile, Micron has frozen its prices for the time being.

What does this mean for you?

Obviously, servers don’t use consumer SSDs like the ones you install in your PC. But if demand from the corporate sector continues to put so much strain on production capacities, it’s only a matter of time before the effects also reach the end customer market.

A glance at the price development tool in our store is deceptive: the situation here currently looks stable, with hardly any price fluctuations in recent months. But according to Senior Category Business Manager Dimitri Pfluger, there are bottlenecks, which will probably drive up prices in the future.

Let’s hope that the higher prices for mass storage aren’t here to stay as was the case with GPUs.

Header image: Shutterstock / Gorodenkoff

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Kevin Hofer

Senior Editor

kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.ch

From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.

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