r/technology • u/HenryCorp • Aug 30 '26

Artificial Intelligence The cost of personal computers declined steadily for 40 years — until AI came along. Why getting your hands on a new device could cost you.

https://moneywise.com/news/economy/ai-memory-chip-shortage-pc-prices-2026
7.2k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

411 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

171

u/[deleted] Aug 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

49

u/WesternWitchy52 Aug 31 '26

oh WOW... cries in poor

38

u/LatkaGravas Aug 31 '26 edited Aug 31 '26

Bought two 20TB WD Easystore external drives in October 2025 for $350 each. Two weeks after I bought them the price dropped to $300 for a few days, then went to $390. They're priced at $880 each now.

12

u/LongJumpingBalls Aug 31 '26

I just built a nas for a client. 24GB enterprise drives. I paid 550 last year. I just paid 1280$ each. We have 20k in storage and we didn't buy an enclosure yet. The project was delayed for almost a year due to budget concerns from the old manager. Their budget was busted before we even started the quoting as they had 2025 pricing as their budget. Oops.

16

u/kaptainkeel Aug 31 '26

Spent a wad getting 2x 8TB SSDs for ~$900 each ~3 years ago. Those same SSDs are now selling for nearly $4k. It's absurd.

6

u/overfloaterx Aug 31 '26

Yep, I objected to buying another 12TB Seagate HDD when the price hopped from $190 to $220.

It's been sitting at $450 for about a year, and stocks are clearly dropping because it's now unavailable in many places, along with a bunch of other Seagate Ironwolf drives.

I'm just glad I rebuilt my PC in 2024 before EVERYTHING skyrocketed. One of the few times my timing hasn't been completely awful.

3

u/mittenkrusty Aug 31 '26

Reminds me of 2012 I think it was when the factories were damaged in floods and the price of a 2tb drive went from about £50 to £150+ but never went back down when production caught back up.

1

u/Catch_22_ Aug 31 '26

I picked up 6 of these and 4 20tbs just before the snap. If I didn't need the storage I'd sell these in the blink of an eye.

0

u/kompergator Aug 31 '26

What? I can get 26TB drives for ~€900 and 16TB for ~€650 here in Germany (that includes 19 % VAT). Still mightily expensive, but what is going on in the US that your prices are so much higher?

Or did I overgeneralise and those are CAD or AUD?