Mary Coxon, Partner Marketing Manager, ThinkOn
Your cost per terabyte is climbing, and your client contracts were priced on last year’s assumptions. The MSPs who come through this squeeze in good shape are the ones who work out their exposure now, while they still have time to act on it.
What is happening to storage prices? The pressure is real, and it is documented quarter by quarter:
- TrendForce forecasted NAND flash contract prices to rise 70 to 75 percent in the second quarter of 2026
- Enterprise SSD contract prices were forecasted to rise 53 to 68 percent in the first quarter alone.
- Server vendors have announced price increases of 15 percent or more, and lead times on larger memory orders now exceed 40 weeks.
- It hasn’t stopped. TrendForce’s latest forecast has NAND contract prices rising another 15 to 20 percent in the fourth quarter of 2026, with enterprise SSDs the only category where increases are speeding up.
- IDC describes the shortage as a potentially permanent reallocation of wafer capacity toward AI, not a normal cycle that corrects itself.
- Manufacturers are shifting wafer capacity toward AI memory, and new capacity is largely spoken for. Buyers without long-term supply agreements have lost leverage. Most new supply is already committed, leaving little on the open market. Buyers without long-term supply agreements have lost leverage.
Why rising storage costs land hard on an MSP
Your clients’ data keeps growing: retention, archive, Microsoft 365 protection, DR copies and yes, AI. Volume and unit cost now compound in the same direction, under agreements that run for years. You can absorb the gap from margin, or you can go back to clients and reprice. Neither is a call any owner wants to make.
Four checks to run this quarter
- Exposure. How many terabytes are you responsible for, and what is that data costing you this year compared with last?
- Contract terms. How long are your client agreements, and do they let you reprice if storage costs move?
- Where the copies sit. How much of the estate is on hardware you will have to refresh in the next 12 months?
- Supply. Does your storage provider plan on long-term supply agreements, or buy at spot?
Where ThinkOn fits
There’s a third option: move the layer of data that’s growing fastest off your own hardware. ThinkOn plans our storage on long-term supply agreements, so our pricing has held steady while component costs climb, and there are no egress fees when your clients need their data back.
Place an immutable off-site copy or an object storage tier with us, and that capacity leaves your refresh cycle.
We’re channel-only, so the client relationship, the service and the margin stay with you.
Let’s compare notes
We’re heading to IT Nation Connect Global, November 4–6 in Orlando. Stop by Booth 545 and bring your numbers from the four checks above. If you can’t make it, contact us, and we’ll set up a call.
