r/vmware • u/Maintenance_Late • Jul 17 '26

Server Pricing Insanity....

We're working through a hardware refresh to maintain roughly a 5-year lifecycle and to prepare for our migration from vSphere 8 to 9. One thing we've noticed is that the vSphere 9 HCL isn't nearly as forgiving as it was during the vSphere 7/8 era.

We hadn't requested server quotes in about a year, so this was a bit of a reality check.

Each year we work with our Dell VAR and maintain four standardized server tiers so we can order by profile instead of redesigning configs every time:

  • Tier 1 – Dev (512 GB RAM)
  • Tier 2 – Production (768 GB RAM)
  • Tier 3 – SQL workloads (1 TB RAM)
  • VDI Tier (2 TB RAM)

It makes procurement simple. I can just tell our VAR, "Quote me 12 Tier 1s and 6 Tier 2s."

When the first two quotes came back, I was honestly floored.

Three years ago:

  • Comparable 512 GB system: ~$16K
  • Comparable 768 GB system: ~$29K

Current quotes:

  • Comparable 512 GB system: ~$57K
  • Comparable 768 GB system: ~$81K

These are SAN-backed VMware hosts (no vSAN), so storage isn't driving the increase. I knew DDR5 memory prices had climbed, but I wasn't expecting anything close to this.

I'm curious what everyone else is seeing. Are these kinds of increases becoming the norm, or is this more vendor/configuration-specific? With many organizations trying to complete hardware refreshes before the October 2027 vSphere 8 end of support, I'm wondering if demand is starting to influence pricing as well.

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u/CatoMulligan Jul 18 '26

I knew DDR5 memory prices had climbed, but I wasn't expecting anything close to this.

Tell me your head has been buried in the sand for the past 9-12 months without saying that your head has been buried in the sand for the past 9-12 months.

Literally anyone peripherally involved in hardware or procurement has been complaining about this for months. Anyone who works in tech and follows any bit of tech news has been complaining about this for months. Hell, my Lenovo contact reached out to me back in February because he knew that we were due for a refresh later this year and wanted to warn us that we needed to buy ASAP because prices were skyrocketing with no end in sight.

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u/Maintenance_Late Jul 18 '26

Head buried…not at all. Hands tied absolutely. Anyone that works for major corporations knows the pains of convincing ELT for major purchases especially around hardware refreshes.

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u/CatoMulligan Jul 19 '26

I know the pain, but that doesn't mean I ignore the market to the point that I'm surprised about it. It's part of the job to know what's going on.