Apple just quietly hiked the prices of these popular accessories, and there is a scary reason why

However, it isn't just RAM prices that are going up. According to Gurman, this situation is also hitting the prices of external hard drives, which in Apple's case have become virtually impossible to find in stock. To give you an idea of what we are facing, here is a summary of the increases you can expect across the board, based on SanDisk SSD price increases:

• The 4-terabyte option is no longer sold at the original price of $500; the new price is around $1,200.
• The 1-terabyte option is no longer sold at the original price of $120; the new price is around $360.

It should be noted that these prices are the original prices set by the manufacturers of the hard drives themselves and do not reflect the prices set by retailers such as Apple or Amazon.

What does this mean to you?

For digital creators this is big news indeed. For anyone who works with video editing or photo taking, these drives are a big part of the workflow. Therefore, not only does the cost factor play a big role, with the prices being two or three times higher than normal, but the availability of the drives themselves is also a problem.

If you check on Apple's site, you'll find that inventory is low across the board for these products. They are basically sold out online. Although you can probably find one at a physical store, the prices will likely be the inflated ones you see above. And with the AI boom showing no signs of letting up anytime soon, the demand for storage components is only going to continue to rise.

Dealing with the storage squeeze

To be honest with you, the situation is quite frustrating. As someone who relies on backing up videos regularly, the idea of having to spend over a thousand dollars on a storage drive is quite the daunting thought.

As a recommendation, unless you absolutely have to have the storage capacity of the larger drives, I would say hold off on buying any of the larger capacity drives yourself. However, if you're a casual user, you should be able to weather the storm with cloud storage for a little while longer.