The price of hard drives could skyrocket after the rumored bankruptcy of a key player
The price of hard drives could skyrocket after the rumored bankruptcy of a key company in the sector.
As pointed out by TechRadar, Resonac, a company that manufactures a crucial component of SSD hard drives, could cause serious problems in the development and distribution of these devices.
The result? Higher prices and fewer units available in stores.
The situation in itself is not positive. Companies like Seagate or Western Digital have seen a decrease in sales between 2022 and 2023. To be exact, their shipments have decreased by 43% year-on-year, according to data from Trendfocus. With this situation, Sales could decline even further.
If this bankruptcy occurs in Resonac, the situation could become quite complicated and have serious ramifications for the rest of the industry.
At the beginning of this year, some of the largest hard drives on the market, such as Seagate’s 22TB hard drive, were expected towould be among the cheapest high-capacity hard drives come Christmas.
This is because hard drive manufacturers, such as Seagate and Western Digital, are immersed in a race to create and distribute hard drives of up to 30 TB. What’s more, its launch was expected for this year.
However, this is just the beginning, as the same company suggested a few years ago that its work on the new generation of heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) media for hard drives could lead to 80TB hard drives.
This is consistent with Seagate-supported research that further tuned HAMR storage density to reach sizes up to 100TB.
However, with the best SSDs becoming cheaper, the way could be paved for this alternative and much faster storage medium to dominate in the coming years, if the rumors are true and Resonac is indeed the company at the edge of collapse.
Even if the company is not Resonac, It is worrying that a major supplier of hard drive components is going to close its doors, with subsequent supply chain disruptions that would hinder a market that is already in an unhealthy situation.
