Enterprise SSD/HDD price increases :-(

[is39]

That AI boom has increased prices on SSDs (and to less amount HDDs):

AI boom is boosting demand even for HDDs

No computer part, even spinning rust, is safe from the hype cycle

www.theregister.com

Unfortunately this appears to have even bigger impact on secondary market (since it's not as deep).
I do see larger-sized (3.84TB+) enterprise SSDs (used and new) often double in price from September 2023.
Hope that AI boom would not last long ;-)

(sorry, this is not a deal, but just the opposite - unless anybody has ideas on how to counter this tendency...)

 

[marcoi]

Also not a deal, but memory prices are expected to go up as well due to recent earthquakes. Seems like ill be keeping my old stuff running without upgrades thru 2024.

 

[zack$]

Don't forget about manufacturers creating artificial shortages just manipulate prices upwards.

 

[VMman]

it seems to be impacting all size SSD's, new 1.92tb Samsungs are up $80+ compared to pricing of 6mths ago.

 

[Samir]

Seems like since covid manufacturers will use any excuse to jack up prices because they know the market will 'just take it'.

I've personally seen used hard drive prices seem to drop on the various places I look, with the lowest now being $3-4/TB vs $6/TB. Sucks that ssds are moving the opposite direction. I'm sure there will be people looking to gouge on market moves. Hell, it's like the stock market now. Can't wait to see homelab stuff appear on the futures and commodities boards.

 

[Cruzader]

Material and production costs going up goes directly onto product, not really any shocker.
But i suppose the AI headline gets more clicks than the already extensively covered actual main reasons.

For used SSDs ive seen the listing prices going up on some stuff, but even if what they want has gone up im still getting offers in the same ranges as before accepted.
Was same when the demand of SSDs early in chia came, they hiked the prices but still accepted same offers as before if offering on 10+ drives.

With how much the prices on 8-24x U.2 servers have dropped id expect the demand for U.2 to also simply have gone up.

 

[T_Minus]

vs last fall a lot of tech cost more now (NEW and used)! Hope everyone got in on the deals last fall!

 

[Samir]

Good point on demand--most newer servers make nvme/u.2 a lot easier to use so I could see demand higher than it has been historically and increasing in the future.

 

[Cruzader]

Good point on demand--most newer servers make nvme/u.2 a lot easier to use so I could see demand higher than it has been historically and increasing in the future.

Yeah with v3/v4 xeons its mostly been 2-4 optional bays that needs enablement kit.

Now we are increasingly seeing gen1 scalable dumped with 8-16nvme bays ready to go.
Ironicly scalable is hard to get out the door fast enough for the resellers, most are still only looking at v3/v4 models for their labs.

When buying DL380 CTO boxes to spec for resale im literally paying more for a 24sff Gen9 unit than a 16sff(8nvme) Gen10 unit.

 

[Digital Spaceport]

...unless anybody has ideas on how to counter this tendency...

I'm on it! Let me ask my self hosted... Ah shit.

 

[ano]

NVME u.2 we bought i now 3x for same...

but SAS SSD and u.2 are now closer, we have almost only bought u.2 now, previously I bought a LOT of sas SSD, like petabytes at a time.

 

[Samir]

When buying DL380 CTO boxes to spec for resale im literally paying more for a 24sff Gen9 unit than a 16sff(8nvme) Gen10 unit.

Interesting data point.

 

[Cruzader]

Interesting data point.

The price difference for me to buy something like 256gb ddr4 2133p + 2x 16core v4 VS 256gb ddr4 2666v + 2x 20core gen1 is insignificant.
So its the barebone CTO prices i mainly follow and what dictates my outgoing prices.

It really facinates me how we are not seeing a larger transition in homelab overall towards scalable with how much they have dropped.
Now its DL380 Gen10 prices that are tanked for a while since so much more supply than demand, last year we saw the same with r740xd for a while.
Cisco, huawei and lenovo scalables are consistently cheap, supermicros and quantas come and go with cheap dumps.

But still v3/v4 is the default people go towards for hosts.

 

[Samir]

The price difference for me to buy something like 256gb ddr4 2133p + 2x 16core v4 VS 256gb ddr4 2666v + 2x 20core gen1 is insignificant.
So its the barebone CTO prices i mainly follow and what dictates my outgoing prices.

It really facinates me how we are not seeing a larger transition in homelab overall towards scalable with how much they have dropped.
Now its DL380 Gen10 prices that are tanked for a while since so much more supply than demand, last year we saw the same with r740xd for a while.
Cisco, huawei and lenovo scalables are consistently cheap, supermicros and quantas come and go with cheap dumps.

But still v3/v4 is the default people go towards for hosts.

Interesting to hear from the front line. Yeah, it is interesting with supply increasing and prices dropping that there aren't more adoptions into the homelab. I guess people are broke, lol.

 

[BackupProphet]

The performance difference between Broadwell and Skylake is negligible. I run like 20 different services, and a dual socket 14 core Intel 2690 v4 is plenty. I have a Ryzen 7950x as my workstation, with 40GbE fiber to my single server. My next upgrade will probably be a Ryzen 9950x and a RTX 5090. My server will probably chug along a few more years.

For my office however, its Epyc that I think offers best value today.

 

[Cruzader]

For my office however, its Epyc that I think offers best value today.

I really want epyc for my own lab but not really been that many epyc drops of servers at a low-ish price yet.

Ive seen these gigabytes G292-Z20 around 400€ with a 7402p but thats pretty much it.
But they are cheap for a reason i suppose, not really much exposed IO or a massive demand for 8gpu servers.

 

[SnJ9MX]

The performance difference between Broadwell and Skylake is negligible. I run like 20 different services, and a dual socket 14 core Intel 2690 v4 is plenty. I have a Ryzen 7950x as my workstation, with 40GbE fiber to my single server. My next upgrade will probably be a Ryzen 9950x and a RTX 5090. My server will probably chug along a few more years.

For my office however, its Epyc that I think offers best value today.

It's negligible and skylake is where the power consumption starts ticking back up. For me, v4 is the sweet spot in the performance/cost/idle power balancing act. I have built 2x different boxes (only 1x 2690v4 each), one Dell R630, another whitebox R630 equivalent that idled around 45W. Haven't tried with SP gen 1 yet because those costs have just started coming down and frankly I don't need to upgrade.

 

[Whaaat]

Haven't tried with SP gen 1 yet because those costs have just started coming down

Prices already started climbing although you can still buy Gold 6132 twice as cheap as 2690v4.
Servers availability for SP is a different story, 1U barebones price very seldom drops down to $200 but if you are lucky to get one, you'll get dual 10GbE (X550) or even 25GbE LOM for free (instead of 4*1Gb option for Broadwell)

 

[Cruzader]

Prices already started climbing although you can still buy Gold 6132 twice as cheap as 2690v4.

CPUs have started climbing a bit ive seen for single units, especialy the OEMs like 6133 that was down in 20$ for a while.

My gotos when i spec boxes cheap-ish are these
Xeon 5120 (14x2.2ghz) around 15$
Xeon 6138 (20x2.0ghz) around 35$
Xeon 6162 (24x1.9ghz) around 80$

Xeon 6134 (8x3.2ghz) around 80$
Xeon 6150 (18x2.7ghz) around 90$
Xeon 6133 (20x2.5ghz) fluctuates alot week to week 30-60$
(When doing offers on 10+ usualy 20-30% below accepted)

In atleast Europe atm these servers are usualy obtainable in the 200-250 area as offers
- Huawei 2288h v5, 8sff
- Cisco c220 m5, 4lff
- Cisco c240 m5, 26sff (2-4nvme)
- DL380 Gen10, 16sff (8nvme)
- Quanta T42S-2U, the stripped down 4node with no storage bays
Most of these you can get at 80-140ea if getting lots of 10+, but thats a bit more than most want in lab i suppose.

R640/R740xd was in that area last year but have gone back up.

 

[Whaaat]

My gotos when i spec boxes cheap-ish are these
Xeon 6150 (18x2.7ghz) around 90$

But yikes, Xeon 6140 for $30 is only 10% slower...