Katarzyna Petru
The storage market has just received another warning signal. Western Digital has admitted that its production capacities for 2026 are already fully contracted. The enormous demand from companies developing AI infrastructure is causing even traditional hard drives to cease being a "safe haven" for pricing. This means that the issue of shortages is no longer limited to just RAM or SSDs. Individual customers are starting to take a backseat. And prices? The pressure is still rising.
Production sold out a year in advance
The CEO of Western Digital, Irving Tan, confirmed during the financial results presentation that the company has practically sold all of its production for 2026. Major clients have contracted huge volumes of data, and some have secured supplies even for 2027 and 2028 as part of long-term agreements. The effect is straightforward: retail is no longer key. The consumer segment today accounts for only about 5 percent of the company's revenues. When data centers buy everything "in bulk," stores and ordinary users are not a priority.
AI Takes Over Supply Chains
The boom in artificial intelligence is driving sales not only of graphics cards and RAM. AI models require huge storage spaces, which means massive purchases of HDDs for data centers. In practice, AI infrastructure "devours" available components, affecting prices across the entire IT sector. The industry hoped that traditional hard drives would remain price-stable as an older generation technology. Instead, the opposite has happened. The surge in demand from hyperscalers has put even this segment under pressure.
Buy now or wait?
For the individual user, the situation is uncomfortable. Either you accept the current prices, or you hope for improvement in the future. The problem is that there is nothing to indicate a quick slowdown in AI investments. If the trend continues, price pressure may last into 2027 as well.
One thing is certain: manufacturers have guaranteed sales for years to come. And as long as big corporations reserve every available terabyte, the purchasing decisions of ordinary customers will be of marginal importance.
Source: Western Digital / Spider’s Web
