Hard Disk Drives are now in great demand, which has pushed their price premiums up by an average of 46% since mid-September. According to the ComputerBase tracker, HDDs have increased their prices over the past four months by anywhere from 23% to 66%, depending on the model. Standing at the lowest 23% increase is the Seagate IronWolf Pro NAS HDD + Rescue 16 TB HDD, while the highest price increase was observed in the Toshiba Cloud Scale Capacity MG10F AFA 22 TB model. The price tracker followed fluctuations of the 12 most popular HDD models based on their EUR listings and found that HDDs rose by an average of 46% across the four-month period, resulting in spinning rust being almost 50% more expensive, without any substantial supply chain shortage.

A month ago in December, DigiTimes reported that fourth-quarter 2025 contract negotiations concluded with traditional HDD prices rising about 4% quarter-over-quarter, the largest increase in the past eight quarters. This contributed to the overall 46% price increase observed today, as these single-digit contract changes accumulate and multiply by the time they reach consumers. Interestingly, HDDs contain almost no silicon for storage purposes, making their significant price increases a supply chain issue unrelated to the semiconductor industry. Apart from the controllers that use silicon, HDD platters are made from materials that are not currently in short supply. However, high demand is what keeps their prices elevated.