Regarding the last boost, I am not informed enough to know whether the increases in RAM prices are affecting other components, but I can attest to a recent explosion in hard drive prices. I've seen folks blame the AI industry, which I'm sure deserves it, but there are probably several factors at play.
Years ago, I want to say circa 2017, I started buying 4 Tbyte external USB hard drives because I had access to several low-power NUCs and this was an easy, low-cost way for me to make a resilient, high-capacity storage cluster, one I still use today and am quite happy with. 4 Tbyte was the "elbow" at the time, meaning the lowest dollar-per-terabyte. However, they were also the least expensive: I picked up many of these for $20-$40.
Today, the same drives are going for $140 at retailers like NewEgg. You can find some for slightly cheaper if you hunt around, and if you're willing to risk refurbished drives you can find them for a bit cheaper still. But from what I can tell you're still looking at $100-ish per drive. That's an increase of 2.5x-7x over the price eight years ago for a component that by conventional logic would have come down in price significantly in that period.
I guess if I were a filthy capitalist I'd consider selling off my hard drives for a 2.5-7x ROI, but I'm more into use value than exchange value.
(by the way, this post is not an invitation to critique my hardware choices, suggest alternatives, or compare notes about "home labs").
#hardware #tech #prices #RAM #HardDrives #storage #AI #AIIndustry
