Equipment

SSD drives are more and more popular, both in internal drives (laptops, desktops), as well as backup USB drives.

In case you haven't noticed, SSD prices have skyrocketed, e.g. 3x price increases.

I use Sandisk USB SSD drives for backup on a photo trip. I have been using 8 Terabyte SSD drives with USB gen 3.2. I can get 600+ megabytes / second real write speed. For example, that means under 3 minutes to back up 100 gigabyes of images.

This morning, I went to buy another of the Sandisk 8TB USB SSD drives that I purchased last year for about $300 and found the price is now $899! It will probably go higher.

The reason is that the AI data centers worldwide require large fast memory and they are buying up most of the available SSD memory. The situation is expected to last a couple of years (unless there is an AI bubble burst).

This will effect new computer prices too. If you are in the market for a new laptop or desktop, check existing stock that may not be affected by the SSD price increases and buy quickly. The situation is likely to get much worse.

In the meantime, regular spinning magnetic hard drives are still reasonable in cost.

Also, for backup that sits on a shelf for months/years, spinning magnetic hard drives retain data longer than SSDs. SSDs can lose data if not powered on after a year or so, and in some cases, months.