Hard drive prices have surged 46% in four months, driven by high demand from U.S. cloud companies and AI data storage. Learn about the key models and market trends.
© A. Krivonosov
Hard drive prices continue to surge: Over the past four months, their cost has risen by an average of 46%, according to ComputerBase. Analysts tracked 12 of the most popular HDD models on the European market and recorded increases ranging from 23% to 66%. The smallest price hike affected the Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS HDD + Rescue 16 TB, while the largest hit the Toshiba Cloud Scale Capacity MG10F AFA 22 TB.
This price growth isn't due to component shortages or semiconductors: Disk platters are made from readily available materials, and silicon is only used in controllers. The main driver is massive demand from major U.S. cloud companies and hyperscale data centers. They are actively purchasing high-performance HDDs for data storage, including artificial intelligence and analytics workloads where speed isn't critical.
Earlier in December, DigiTimes reported that contract prices for HDDs rose by about 4% in the fourth quarter of 2025, marking the largest quarterly increase in two years. These incremental hikes have accumulated, ultimately contributing to the near-50% overall rise.
Today, hard drives are in demand not just for video surveillance and backups, but also for storing vast AI data sets, where SSDs are less preferred. Manufacturers report near-full capacity utilization, and experts warn that strong demand could keep prices at current levels for several more months.