An increasingly dire global memory shortage that has been driving RAM price higher now appears to be affecting Apple’s online accessory products.
According to a Bloomberg report, prices of some external storage products made by third-party companies such as SanDisk and LaCie have either jumped in price significantly or aren’t available online from Apple.
While some of these products, from flash drives to portable external hard drives to RAID storage devices, might be available in person at Apple Stores, they’re largely unavailable on Apple’s website. Only a few items, such as Apple’s own memory upgrade kits for Mac Pros, are listed as being in stock.
Some items listed as unavailable have also seen steep price increases: a SanDisk Extreme 1TB SSD device has tripled in cost from a previous price of $120 to about $360, for instance. A representative for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Since Apple computers are used a lot for creative work, such as video editing, and the price of built-in memory can be high, many people rely on external storage to keep their large data files. A shortage of memory chips, largely caused by the widespread expansion of data centers and the needs of companies deploying AI technology, has affected prices. It’s expected that these price increases will begin to affect the prices of smartphones and other products over the next two years.
And there’s more potentially bad news: As cars become more like rolling computers, the need for memory in electric vehicles is expected to increase significantly, too. That could affect RAM pricing as well. The memory company Micron predicts that eventually, some cars will need as much as 300GB of storage capacity, especially as more self-driving options become available.
