--- title: The AI hard drive shortage is a real problem, and it's... description: The AI boom has created a hard drive shortage, with Western Digital and Seagate effectively sold out through 2026-2028 due to hyperscaler demand. This has... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-hard-drive-shortage-is-a-real-problem-and-it-s-changing-how-i-d-build-my-next-nas-hsupm90yz twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The AI hard drive shortage is a real problem, and it's changing how I'd build my next NAS | daily.dev og:description: The AI boom has created a hard drive shortage, with Western Digital and Seagate effectively sold out through 2026-2028 due to hyperscaler demand. This has... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-hard-drive-shortage-is-a-real-problem-and-it-s-changing-how-i-d-build-my-next-nas-hsupm90yz og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/hSuPm90yz.png og:image:alt: The AI hard drive shortage is a real problem, and it's changing how I'd build my next NAS og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The AI hard drive shortage is a real problem, and it's changing how I'd build my next NAS **[XDA Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The AI boom has created a hard drive shortage, with Western Digital and Seagate effectively sold out through 2026-2028 due to hyperscaler demand. This has driven up consumer HDD prices significantly, with smaller-capacity drives seeing the worst price-per-terabyte ratios. For NAS builders, redundancy now feels like a costly tax rather than a reasonable insurance. The recommended approach is to consider used/recertified enterprise drives (Ultrastar, Exos) via SAS, which have absorbed price hikes better than retail. Builders should carefully calculate the cost of redundancy upfront and plan for whether future capacity expansion is worth paying for now, especially with ZFS mirror setups. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why are hard drive prices so high right now and is it related to AI demand? Hard drive prices have risen because AI infrastructure buildouts are consuming manufacturer capacity that would otherwise go to retail and consumer drives. Western Digital told investors it was effectively sold out of hard drives for 2026, with long-term agreements already signed covering 2027 and 2028, and Seagate reported similar constraints on its nearline capacity. _daily.dev surfaces ongoing storage market coverage for anyone timing a NAS build around drive pricing._ ### Are used enterprise hard drives a good alternative to new consumer drives during a storage shortage? Yes, used enterprise drives have absorbed recent price increases better than retail consumer drives because they follow a separate supply chain rather than competing with hyperscaler purchase orders. Recertified Ultrastar and Exos drives, tested and re-warranted by sellers who publish SMART data, remain a strong value in bulk storage, though they require added investment in an HBA card, cooling, and cabling. _developers weighing storage hardware trade-offs can track pricing and reliability discussions on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Thanks a lot, AI: Hard drives are already sold out for the entire year, says Western Digital](https://daily.dev/posts/thanks-a-lot-ai-hard-drives-are-already-sold-out-for-the-entire-year-says-western-digital-w4htkmxsv) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Medium](https://daily.dev/posts/medium-sduotywzu) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Hold on to Your Hardware](https://daily.dev/posts/hold-on-to-your-hardware-9nqouzuov) · Lobsters · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [I'm still buying used enterprise HDDs for my NAS, and new drives make less sense to me now than they already did](https://daily.dev/posts/i-m-still-buying-used-enterprise-hdds-for-my-nas-and-new-drives-make-less-sense-to-me-now-than-they-llkzsyi6w) · XDA Developers · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Hard drives on backorder for two years as AI data centers trigger HDD shortage — delays forcing rapid transition to QLC SSDs](https://daily.dev/posts/hard-drives-on-backorder-for-two-years-as-ai-data-centers-trigger-hdd-shortage-delays-forcing-rapi-dfoqyehrw) · Hacker News · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#storage](https://daily.dev/tags/storage), [#proxmox](https://daily.dev/tags/proxmox) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-hard-drive-shortage-is-a-real-problem-and-it-s-changing-how-i-d-build-my-next-nas-hsupm90yz) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The AI hard drive shortage is a real problem, and it's changing how I'd build my next NAS","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-hard-drive-shortage-is-a-real-problem-and-it-s-changing-how-i-d-build-my-next-nas-hsupm90yz","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-ai-hard-drive-shortage-is-a-real-problem-and-it-s-changing-how-i-d-build-my-next-nas-hsupm90yz"},"datePublished":"2026-08-05T18:34:54.175Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:05:31.216Z","description":"The AI boom has created a hard drive shortage, with Western Digital and Seagate effectively sold out through 2026-2028 due to hyperscaler demand. 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