GoKawiil
Tech News
Amid an ongoing chip shortage dubbed 'RAMageddon,' memory, processors and graphics cards have seen steep price increases, while hard disk drives and solid-state drives have so far been comparatively insulated. Storage prices are still climbing, but industry signals suggest the worst pressure on HDDs and SSDs may ease over time rather than persist indefinitely.
Newegg has cut the price of Seagate's 16TB Expansion Desktop External HDD to $399.99, down from its $549.99 list price and $50 below its recent Prime Day price. The drive ships formatted in ExFAT, includes Seagate's Rescue Data Recovery service, and connects via USB 3.0 with its own external power supply.
Seagate and Toshiba are engaged in a bidding war to purchase TDK's remaining HDD magnetic-head manufacturing business. Toshiba has been in talks with TDK since earlier this year, while Seagate submitted a higher offer during the summer, with the deal valued at several billion dollars. The outcome could significantly impact the supply chain for major HDD makers, especially as industry demand surges due to AI-driven data storage needs.
Newegg has discounted the 16TB Seagate Expansion Desktop external drive by $100, reducing its price to $449.99. The drive, which likely contains a 5,400 RPM HDD such as Barracuda or IronWolf Pro, offers a cost-effective storage solution at approximately $0.02 per GB, though its speed is limited by the drive's rotational speed and interface. Users can remove the enclosure to install the drive internally, but this voids the warranty and may not improve performance significantly for modern gaming or high-speed applications.
Toshiba has spent roughly ¥60 billion ($380 million) expanding its hard drive assembly facility in the Philippines, aiming to double nearline HDD production capacity by fiscal 2027 versus fiscal 2025. New manufacturing lines at the Laguna Technopark site are already installed and shipping, positioning Toshiba to launch 30TB-class drives in 2027, 65TB-class drives by 2030, and eventually 100TB-class drives using MAMR technology with up to 11 platters.
Comparing a 256GB SSD to a 1TB hard drive isn't a simple capacity contest, since SSDs retrieve data electronically from flash memory while HDDs rely on spinning platters and moving read/write heads, making SSDs significantly faster for booting and running programs. Whether 256GB is enough depends heavily on usage: it suits light users who rely on cloud storage, while heavy local file storage, creative work or gaming may require 512GB, 1TB or more.
Storage prices are climbing fast as AI data centers consume the supply of NAND flash and hard drive components once reserved for consumer products. A 2TB SSD that cost $120-$200 last year can now run close to $400, while even small 256GB drives have jumped several times over their previous $25 price point. Portable drives used for everyday backups have also nearly doubled in cost within months.