Everyone buying a laptop or phone in India this year has heard about the memory crisis -- RAM and SSD prices climbing as AI data centers eat up global chip supply. What's getting almost no attention is that the same thing has now happened to plain old spinning hard drives, the cheap bulk storage inside desktop PCs, NAS boxes, and external backup drives.
Why hard drives are suddenly scarce
Hard drives were supposed to be the boring, unaffected part of this story -- AI servers use fast flash storage for active workloads, not mechanical disks. But AI data centers also need enormous amounts of cheap, high-capacity storage to archive the data those models are trained on, and that demand has landed squarely on nearline HDDs, the large-capacity drives storage vendors sell to data centers.
According to a report on Seagate and Western Digital's recent earnings calls, both companies say their entire hard drive output for 2026 is already committed, with long-term supply agreements for some customers extending into 2027 and 2028. In practical terms, that means the two companies that make nearly all the world's hard drives have no spare capacity left for the rest of the year.
The price effect has been sharp. Tech4Gamers reported that hard drive trade prices rose roughly 10% quarter-over-quarter in Q2 2026 alone, on top of earlier increases, with consumer-level 1TB and 2TB drives becoming genuinely hard to find at normal prices. Industry trackers cited in that coverage put the cumulative rise since late 2025 at close to 50% for some drive capacities.
India is already feeling the shift
This isn't just a US data-center story. CMR's Q1 2026 India market report found external HDD shipments and surveillance-drive HDD shipments both grew sharply quarter-over-quarter, which the analysts linked directly to the widening price gap between SSDs and HDDs -- buyers are leaning on hard drives precisely because flash storage has gotten so expensive, right as hard drives themselves start climbing too.
For anyone assembling or upgrading a desktop PC in India, that squeeze shows up in two ways: a bare internal or external hard drive costs noticeably more than it did a year ago, and the budget "just add more storage later" plan that used to make desktops cheap to build is quietly getting more expensive.
What this means if you're buying a PC right now
If you were planning to buy a budget desktop and add a large hard drive separately, price that drive before you commit to the rest of the build -- the number you remember from even six months ago is probably out of date. It's also worth resisting the urge to buy the cheapest no-name drive you can find just to dodge the price hike; unbranded or grey-market drives are where reliability problems tend to show up first when a component is in short supply.
This is also a case where a refurbished machine has a real, practical advantage over building new. Every refurbished laptop we sell already ships with its storage built in -- 256GB or 512GB SSD configurations paired with 8GB or 16GB RAM -- so you're not pricing a separate hard drive into the deal at all. The same logic applies whether you need something for business use or a student setup: the storage cost is already baked into a machine that's graded Good or Fair and priced accordingly, not sitting exposed to this month's HDD spot price.
If you do need a desktop with large bulk storage -- for video editing, backups, or a home server -- expect to pay more for that storage line item than you would have a year ago, and don't assume prices will come back down soon. Industry forecasts cited across the reporting above don't expect real relief before 2027 at the earliest, since Western Digital and Seagate are already locking in supply agreements that far out.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are hard drive prices rising if AI doesn't use hard drives for training?
AI companies don't use hard drives for active model training, but they need massive amounts of cheap bulk storage to archive training data and logs, and that demand has absorbed nearly all of Western Digital's and Seagate's nearline hard drive production for 2026.
Are SSD prices and HDD prices rising for the same reason?
Largely yes. Both are being squeezed by AI data center demand, but through different mechanisms -- flash memory chips are diverted to faster storage AI workloads need directly, while hard drives are being bought up for bulk archival capacity.
Does buying a refurbished laptop avoid this problem?
Yes, because refurbished laptops are sold with their storage already fitted -- 256GB or 512GB SSD configurations -- so you're not separately pricing a hard drive or SSD at today's inflated rates.
Is it better to buy a desktop PC or a laptop while storage prices are high?
If you need large bulk storage like a home server or NAS, a desktop still makes sense, but budget more for the storage itself. For general computing, a laptop with built-in storage avoids the separate hard drive cost entirely.
When will hard drive prices come back down?
Analysts don't expect meaningful relief before 2027 at the earliest, since Western Digital and Seagate have already signed supply agreements with major customers that run into 2027 and 2028.
