High‑capacity HDDs (especially 16–22 TB) really have jumped, often 40–60%+ since late 2025, and some SKUs look close to double what they were 8–10 months ago.
What your Best Buy page shows
From the page you’re on (12 TB+ external drives, price low→high):
- Seagate Expansion 8 TB: 249.99.
- Seagate Expansion 16 TB: 369.99 (and currently out of stock, “Notify Me”).
- WD easystore 18 TB: 509.99.
- WD Elements 16 TB: 541.01.
- WD My Book 16 TB: 615.11.
That’s a $23–38 per TB street price band for branded external 16–18 TB on Best Buy, which is noticeably higher than what we were seeing a year ago (sub‑$20/TB for similar capacities was common at times in 2024/early‑2025 promo cycles)..
On Amazon‑aggregated data (diskprices.com), 16–20 TB hard drives (many shucked/renewed/externals) are clustering around $24–26 per TB, even in the cheaper segments. That aligns with what you’re seeing at Best Buy once you add retail margin and “brand tax”.
What has changed in the last 8–10 months
Multiple industry trackers and reporting outlets are all saying the same thing: HDD and SSD prices swung from multi‑year decline to a sharp uptrend starting in late 2025, accelerating into early 2026.
Key points:
- HDD contract prices saw their largest increase in eight quarters in Q4 2025, with average HDD prices up around 46% over the four months leading into January 2026; some individual models jumped 23–66%.
- Industry reports for Q4 2025 show HDD revenues up ~17% quarter‑over‑quarter, driven largely by higher average selling prices and growth in nearline/cloud drives.
- Consumer‑visible pricing (retail externals) tends to lag these contract changes a bit, so the big hits are showing up in the last 6–8 months for you.
On the flash side, SSD prices have spiked even harder, with some analyses citing tripling or more for certain large enterprise NVMe and 30 TB TLC SSDs between mid‑2025 and Q1 2026. That matters because it pushes hyperscalers to lean harder on HDD again for cold storage, which feeds back into HDD demand.
Why HDD prices are spiking now
The short version: a demand shock from AI/data‑center build‑outs plus limited HDD production capacity (and some manufacturer pricing discipline) flipped the usual “cheaper every year” trend.
Main drivers:
- AI and cloud demand for capacity HDDs
- Data‑center/nearline HDD shipments (big 16–24 TB and up) grew double‑digits YoY in 2025 while total HDD units were almost flat, meaning most of the industry is now catering to large capacity buyers.
- Reports note that popular 24 TB HDDs saw price hikes up to ~60%, with an average ~46% increase, largely attributed to intense demand from AI data centers.
- One major vendor (Western Digital) has effectively sold out its entire 2026 HDD production capacity to a handful of big customers, according to public commentary, which leaves less slack for aggressive pricing in the retail channel.
- SSD price spike pushing more demand back to HDD
- SSDs, which had been dirt cheap, reversed course in late 2025; some 30 TB enterprise SSDs reportedly rose over 400% in price between Q2 2025 and Q1 2026.
- Analyses and coverage highlight that SSDs can cost an order of magnitude more per TB than HDDs now, especially at higher capacities, so data centers are re‑balancing toward HDD for bulk storage.
- That extra demand hits the same finite HDD manufacturing lines, giving vendors leverage to raise prices without losing big buyers.
- Capacity‑focused product mix and limited competition
- The HDD market is essentially down to a few big players (Seagate, WD, Toshiba), and their focus has shifted heavily to high‑capacity nearline drives where margins are better.
- As the mix shifts toward 16 TB+ and 20 TB+ models, average selling price per drive rises, and retail externals are based on the same high‑capacity mechanisms.
- Vendors have not been rushing to flood the market with cheaper capacity at the low end; instead, they’ve allowed prices to rise alongside enterprise demand.
- General supply constraints and component cost pressures
- Market commentary ties HDD pricing to the same supply‑chain and component issues that pushed RAM and NAND upwards, including limited wafer output and careful capacity planning after the 2023–2024 oversupply period.
- With capacity tight and long‑term contracts in place, consumer channels (Best Buy, Amazon retail SKUs) are a lower priority, so they see higher prices and fewer big promos.
Is it really “double” vs 8 months ago?
Exact percentages depend on the specific SKU and where you bought it, but the pattern you’re feeling is consistent with available data:
- Industry‑wide: 40–60% average hikes for popular high‑capacity HDD models between late 2025 and early 2026, with some models in the 60%+ range.
- Retail:
If you were used to grabbing 16 TB externals in the $230–250 range on sale (around $14–16/TB), then today’s $370–540 range is indeed close to a 1.5–2× jump. That lines up with the 46%+ average increase reported for the broader high‑capacity HDD space, plus the retail markup and reduced promo activity.
Practical implications and what you can do
For someone like you who buys real capacity, this environment suggests a few tactics:
- Look beyond mainstream retail for now
- Be flexible on capacity and form factor
- Time buys if possible
- All the forward‑looking commentary is that 2026 stays tight because capacity is already largely booked by hyperscalers, so I wouldn’t expect a near‑term crash back to 2024 pricing.