5 mo. ago • 100%

How are data storage prices going to change in the next couple years?

I was considering making a 30+ TB NAS to simplify and streamline my current setup but because it's a relatively low priority for me I am wondering is it worth it to hold off for a year or two?

I am unsure if prices have more or less plateaued and the difference won't be all that substantial. Maybe I should just wait for Black Friday.

For context it seems like two 16TB HDD would cost about $320 currently.

Here's some related links:

This article by Our World in Data contains a chart with how the price per GB has decreased overtime.
This article by Tom's Hardware talks about how in July 2023 SSD prices bottomed out before climbing back up predicted further increases in 2024.

14 comments

I have been hoarding for a while now and to me storage prices really seem to have plateaued in the last few years, and it doesn't seem to be picking up as we get back to normal after the pandemic. So I don't think waiting for a couple years is going to save you much. Personally I'd just keep an eye out for good deals like Best Buy WD Easystore sales, or Black Friday in general, and pull the trigger then.

6
- Black Friday is definitely a good option. I'll also point out that WD and Seagate are working on 20TB-30TB drives that should be coming out in the next couple of years which should, in theory, drive the prices down further for smaller capacity drives.
  
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A couple of years is a life time in tech, but despite that, I think the one thing that should be the deciding factor is if you’re actually going to need the space in the mean time. If not, waiting won’t make a difference. On the flip side, if you’re going to need it in the next couple of years anyway, then it might be easier to recognize that $320 over 2 years is less than $0.50/day… taking the initial hit and take advantage of it earlier will probably work out great.

5
Where can you get two 16 TB HDDs for $320? Cheapest I could find was a 14TB Toshiba N300 for around $320 each and I'm on the fence about getting them because they're supposedly pretty noisy. Were the models OP mentioned not for NAS use?

3
- I was referring to drives like the Seagate 16TB HDD Exos X16. That said there are MDD drives that are apparently cheaper but I haven't heard of them before.
  
  1
There was a race to the bottom for SSD prices that ended roughly in July 2023, leading to losses with manufacturers having to sell under production cost; this is why NAND/SSD prices increased since then and will probably only slowly start to decrease at the end of 2024. At the same time, there is very interesting technology in the making, I just read about SSDs with up to 1000 storage layers coming in the next few years. Same goes for HDDs, although less so and prices seem more predictable there; my focus for the next few years would be completely new storage methods competing with HDDs/SSDs, but I don’t think any of this will reach consumer markets at competitive prices until 2028. My prediction: HDDs will decrease like in the past years, SSDs will start really decreasing in price with the start of 2025 and it will take a few years for completely new storage methods to arrive.

2
In general, technology gets cheaper for better products over time. Short term that's not always true, but the longer timescales you look, the better is it for consumers.

A year or two is a long time, and probably worth waiting.

2
- In general, technology gets cheaper for better products over time. Short term that’s not always true, but the longer timescales you look, the better is it for consumers.
  
  Yeah that's why I linked the graph above. I asked here because I thought someone might have looked into this before and have a better insight on it. Maybe they've read about foretasted chip shortages or some kind of technological improvement with manufacturing? I am not sure. It's something I only sporadically see articles about.
  
  A year or two is a long time, and probably worth waiting.
  
  If the price of a HDD on sale this year is equal to the average price of the same tier of HDD two or three years from now I'd probably just pull the trigger now.
  
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  There are a number of storage technologies in the works right now. However, I think they will result in a new type of memory device rather than HDDs getting cheaper. Kind of like how a stack of CDs isn't cheaper now than it was in 2005, rather there are new types of storage that offer more memory and longer life spans.
  
  So if you are definetly going HDD, prices are probably not going to get that much cheaper, if any cheaper at all.
  
  I'd say keep an eye out for sales & that will probably make a bigger difference than waiting a set amount of time.
  
  3
- Waiting can be good if there is something on the horizon, but often with tech if you wait for the next thing you'll find there's another new thing on the horizon then. You do kind of have to decide that you're putting your stake in the ground at some point
  
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  My stake is really that 30 TB mark. That should be enough to consolidate all my storage conveniently in one spot. I don't need incredibly fast transfer speeds so I think an HDD would do fine.
  
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