"Western Digital chief Tiang Yew Tan told analysts "We're pretty much sold out for calendar '26. We have firm purchase orders with our top seven customers. And we've also established long term agreements with two of them for calendar year '27 and one of them for calendar year '28." It is understood that the third major disk producer, Toshiba, is likely to be in a similar situation. We asked the drive maker and will update if we get an answer."
"Seagate CEO Dave Mosley said on his own company's call: "Our nearline capacity is fully allocated through calendar year 2026, and we expect to begin accepting orders for the first half of calendar year 2027 in the coming months... additionally, multiple cloud customers are discussing their demand growth projections for calendar 2028, underscoring that supply assurance remains their highest priority." Great for WD and Seagate. Not so much for eveveryone else."
"Hard drives have pretty much been displaced from everyday PCs and laptops, but the makers continue to bump up their capacities, making them attractive for applications requiring large volumes of data storage at low cost - such as cloud storage and AI training. Western Digital recently announced it will ship 44 TB drives this year, for example, with a roadmap to 100 TB by 2029."
Western Digital and Seagate have allocated essentially all hard drive production through calendar 2026, with long-term purchase orders and agreements extending into 2027 and 2028. Seagate reports nearline capacity fully allocated through 2026 and anticipates accepting orders for early 2027 soon, while cloud customers project demand growth into 2028. Toshiba is likely in a similar supply-tight situation. High-capacity rotating drives remain the cost-effective choice for large-volume storage and AI training workloads, with Western Digital shipping 44 TB drives and planning a roadmap to 100 TB by 2029. Available open production for discretionary buyers is minimal.
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