Global Storage Media Market Sees Continued Growth and Supply Tightening Driven by AI and Data-Centre Demand in Q3 2025

The global storage media market continued its transformative momentum in Q3 2025, driven by sustained demand from AI and data-centre infrastructure. According to Futuresource quarterly reports, while DRAM experienced a quarter-on-quarter decline of 17%, other storage products performed strongly, with SSD volumes up 10% QoQ and both internal and external HDDs growing 5% QoQ. 

Market Dynamics: Stock Shortages, Pricing, and Supply 

The market continues to face significant supply constraints, particularly for SSDs. Prices are expected to remain elevated throughout 2026, largely due to severe NAND flash shortages driven by AI and data-centre demand. Industry sources report that nearly all NAND production for 2026 has already been allocated, with the supply deficit expected to persist into late 2027 as new manufacturing capacity comes online. 

China, in particular, experienced high prices and stock shortages, leading to notable declines in HDD shipments and sales. Approximately 80% of external HDDs were sold online, reflecting tight availability. This situation is attributed not to domestic production limits but to a global supply-demand imbalance, as surging demand from AI and data-centre expansions absorbs much of the global nearline HDD supply. Key factors include: 

• Limited global HDD production capacity, concentrated among a few major manufacturers. 

• Long-term contracts from major cloud providers, reducing available channel inventory. 

• Nearline HDD supply being prioritized for AI and data-centre deployments. 

NAS Market Trends 

Driven by rising demand from enterprises and home users, along with expanding hybrid-cloud and data-intensive workloads, we believe that the NAS market had a strong potential for growth despite varied performance across the regions in Q3. In the Americas, the continued steady performance was observed with a margin growth of 1% and is expected to remain stable year-over-year. Although exhibiting an overall 4% decline from Q2 in APAC, the strong growth in Indonesia (48%), India (28%) and Taiwan (38%) still proved a strong potential.  

Although the EMEA NAS market since 2022 has shown a year-on-year decline (-24% in 2022, -10% in 2023, -9% in 2024), the rate has been moderating. Despite fluctuations in unit shipments, total storage deployed via NAS is expected to grow, driven by higher-capacity drives and enterprise adoption. Futuresource tracking for 2025 indicates varied growth, with Q1 up 6%, a Q2 dip, and a strong Q3 rebound of 14%, signalling potential for continued recovery in Q4. 

NAND Flash & SSDs – Growth Fuelled by AI Infrastructure 

The SSD market maintained strong momentum from Q2, recording a further 10% quarter-on-quarter growth in shipment volume. This expansion is primarily driven by rising enterprise SSD demand to support cloud computing and AI infrastructure. Key enablers include advances in PCIe Gen5/Gen6 interfaces and QLC NAND–based SSDs specifically optimized for AI workloads. 
 
Leading vendors are at the forefront of innovation, delivering high-capacity, high-performance SSD solutions to meet these requirements. Micron, a leader in memory and storage technologies, has introduced several industry-first products, including the world’s first PCIe Gen6 data center SSD and ultra–high-capacity QLC drives reaching up to 245TB, designed to accelerate AI workloads. Western Digital also offers a comprehensive enterprise SSD portfolio, with a strong emphasis on high-capacity and scalable solutions for data centers and hyperscalers. Under its SanDisk brand, Western Digital is advancing the UltraQLC™ platform, with plans to deliver 256TB NVMe SSDs to support large-scale AI data lakes.However, robust enterprise SSD profitability is driving manufacturers to reallocate production, increasing supply constraints relative to strong demand. This dynamic is expected to continue pushing contract prices upward and sustaining a tight supply environment into late 2025 and 2026. 

Outlook 

Q3 2025 highlights a storage market undergoing deep structural transformation, characterized by sustained AI and data-centre demand, constrained supply, and evolving product innovation. Industry observers expect these trends to continue influencing pricing, shipments, and strategic investments throughout 2026 and beyond. 

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About Futuresource 

Futuresource Consulting provides the insights that power the world’s leading technology and media companies. For more than 30 years we’ve been combining rigorous data, sector expertise and a forward-looking view of market change, to help organisations understand what’s happening, why it’s happening and what’s likely to come next. Our syndicated research, consulting services and industry partnerships span consumer electronics, entertainment, Pro AV, education and emerging technologies. 

More information is available at www.futuresource-consulting.com . 

Press Contact: Nicola Finn, Marketing Manager, Futuresource Consulting, nicola.finn@futuresource-hq.com