Serverpartdeals has new Seagate 16GBTB drives for $520 which still isn't great, but better than $900. SPD also does refurbished and recertified drives which are normally a bit cheaper than new, but in this case there doesn't seem to be much difference.

So depending on what you got going on, used enterprise storage might be of interest. Sites like serverpartdeals.com may have something in your size for less than retail.

Over the past 3 weeks I watched a GPU I bought for $575 in January go from $800 to $1150. Prices aren't just inflated, they're stlll inflating.

Only decent news was seeing a few stories about some AI failures this week. I really hope the bubble is close to cracking. They cant last forever.

best option right now is used or after market.

try local classifieds, fb market place, Craigslist etc.

some people just sell things without realizing what they are selling.

They want you to rent their storage, they know they can survive on big businesses buying their products and subscriptions long enough to choke the individual consumers out, and then they'll have everyone on subscriptions.

The people that make chips have a colossal backlog of jobs. So vendors are not getting chips until the backlog is cleared.

As there is so much "money" being thrown around with AI, vendors can place large orders that takes longer to build.

There was also talk about when you book fabrication time you can get guaranteed production or non guaranteed production. If someone buys guaranteed prod it bumps back the non guaranteed production.

How is this good?