The tariff war is going to drive up the price of a component that no one is talking about: SSD drives.

If we focus on technology, there’s been a lot of talk about the impact of tariffs on chips for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, CPUs, and other components, but storage solutions have gone unnoticed. Until now. The US tariff policy is likely to lead to a significant increase in the price of mechanical hard drives and solid-state storage drives.

Mechanical hard drives may be worse off than SSDs
Seagate, Toshiba, and Western Digital are the leading manufacturers of mechanical hard drives. The supply chains of these three companies are very complex because the components they use to assemble their drives come from a wide range of countries. And, unsurprisingly, many of these nations are among those subject to the highest US tariffs. Initially, the company most disadvantaged in the current situation is Seagate.

As we’ve reported, the US administration has increased tariffs on products from China to 145%, and Seagate produces a large portion of its portfolio in the country led by Xi Jinping. Under the current circumstances, the best option for these companies is to move their production to the US, or to one of the countries that are receiving slightly more favorable treatment from the Donald Trump administration.

However, moving from one country to another isn’t easy for mechanical hard drive manufacturers. This isn’t because these devices are assembled in clean rooms similar to those used to manufacture semiconductors, to ensure that dust particles don’t spoil them. The situation facing solid-state storage drive producers is not much different.

The supply chains of Samsung, Micron, and Kioxia, among other companies that manufacture 3D NAND memory chips or SSDs, are just as complex as those of mechanical hard drive manufacturers. However, solid-state drive manufacturers have one advantage that mechanical hard drive companies don’t: SSD assembly doesn’t have to be carried out in a clean room.