Ah, SanDisk exterior SSDs with these large keychain loops. In case you’re a median shopper, they’re superior and handy. In case you’re a seasoned skilled or knowledge hoarder, they’re too unreliable, I’m instructed. At any charge, they give the impression of being cool they usually’re traditionally a comparatively low-cost place to stash some terabytes.
However not anymore—at the very least not for those who purchase yours from Apple (and I’ll provide you with one guess as to why).
Because of the hardware-devouring wants of AI knowledge facilities, Apple already hiked the costs of MacBook Air and MacBook Professional fashions by 100 {dollars} every final week. However as Bloomberg’s Apple scoops man Mark Gurman factors out, Apple shops—each on-line and brick-and-mortar—have additionally despatched the costs on exterior drives into the stratosphere. “As an illustration,” Gurman writes, “a SanDisk 4-terabyte solid-state exterior drive that when value roughly $500 is now $1,200, whereas a 1-terabyte model has gone from $120 to $360.”
That second one is a 200% worth hike. I haven’t seen a worth improve so punishing since, uh, nicely, earlier at this time, once I put fuel in my tank in Los Angeles.
Gurman is fast to level out that it’s not simply SanDisk merchandise which might be seeing worth spikes, and that distributors set costs, not Apple. It’s value noting, nevertheless, that The Apple Retailer authorized web page says, “Apple reserves the fitting to alter costs for merchandise on the Apple Retailer at any time, and to appropriate inadvertent pricing errors.” So it doesn’t sound like SanDisk has a gun to Apple’s head.
Demand for storage and RAM is a simmering disaster threatening to boil over. As my colleague, Kyle Barr, wrote final week:
The blame for the reminiscence scarcity falls on the toes of the AI increase. The most important AI datacenter initiatives, like OpenAI’s multi-state Stargate challenge, have such an enormous demand for high-bandwidth reminiscence (HBM). Semiconductor firms are making such a revenue from these high-end reminiscence chips that they’ve decreased capability for consumer-level DRAM and SSD storage. Even main firms like Valve are struggling to supply reasonably priced RAM for its Steam Machine. One of many firm’s workers reportedly joked to business insiders at GDC 2026, “When you’ve got a line on a bunch of RAM, we’re available in the market and want to purchase it.”
And storage is beginning to be affected throughout the board, not simply SSDs. Onerous drives are clearly cheaper than SSDs in the intervening time, however as this case continues to worsen worth hikes are bleeding into the exhausting drive market too. And in January, the costs of exhausting drives had been 46% greater than they had been in September of final 12 months.
