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Apple Raises External Storage Prices as AI Consumes Everything

Apple’s retail prices for third‑party external SSDs have surged dramatically, with a 4 TB SanDisk drive climbing from about $500 to nearly $1,200 and a 1 TB model jumping from $120 to over $350. The spike isn’t driven by ordinary inflation but by a global shortage of NAND flash and memory chips, as AI data centers consume massive amounts of storage for training large models. Vendors pass higher component costs to Apple, which in turn passes them to consumers, tightening availability and inflating prices across the board. The trend reflects a broader industry‑wide storage crunch that shows no sign of abating.