It’s well known that hard drive prices have been rapidly increasing. Here’s my personal experience.

In November, 2024 I bought a bundle of two 16TB WD Red Pro NAS Hard Drives directly from Western Digital. The list price was $670 but there was a promotion for the bundle bringing the price down to $500. Tax was $45 and shipping was free. That works out to $272 per drive ($17/TB).

The same drives are now listed for $400 on WD’s website ($25/TB). Diskprices.com (Archive.org snapshot of today) says the lowest price available for a new 16TB drive is $360 ($22.5/TB). Amazon has them for $578.

^ Amazon price history (source: Keepa)

Prices fluctuate, of course, that’s annoying but not so strange. The fact that everything is out of stock seems stranger to me. I was thinking about upgrading some drives and selling the used ones to my coworker but that doesn’t seem feasible now.

The same is true for flash storage and SSDs. I know a video editor who likes to work on 4TB Samsung T7 USB drives. In November, 2024 they cost $279 each. Today they cost $664 on Amazon and $880 on B&H. At least they’re on the shelves, I guess.

I’m not sure where this is going but it seems like prices will keep going up for the immediate future. At this point I’m nervous about SD cards and routers too.