Anyone bracing for Apple to slap a big new price tag on its latest Macs can relax for now. The Macs themselves haven’t suddenly become more expensive. The real sticker shock is happening somewhere many people didn’t expect: external storage.
A fresh wave of price increases has hit external SSDs sold through Apple’s online store and retail locations, driven by an ongoing shortage of DRAM and storage supply. With AI data centers buying up huge portions of available memory and flash storage, everyday consumers are getting squeezed. The result is higher prices, fewer options, and far less availability for people who depend on portable drives to back up photos, videos, work projects, and other essential files.
One of the biggest pain points is the jump in pricing on popular external SSD capacities. A 1TB external drive that previously sold for around $120 is now showing up at about $360, a massive increase that changes external storage from a routine accessory into a serious expense. The situation looks even worse at higher capacities: a 4TB external SSD that once cost roughly $500 is now listed at about $1,200. Other drive models and brands have also been affected, meaning this isn’t limited to a single product line.
It’s worth noting that these prices are set by the storage vendors rather than Apple itself. Still, because many shoppers buy accessories directly through Apple for convenience, compatibility confidence, or in-store availability, the impact is immediate and hard to miss. For customers who have long relied on well-known brands to expand storage without paying premium internal upgrade costs, the sudden surge feels like the ground has shifted overnight.
Ironically, these external SSD price hikes make Apple’s own internal storage upgrades look less outrageous than they typically do. Apple has long been criticized for charging steep amounts for unified memory and SSD capacity increases at purchase time. But compared with what’s happening in the external market, Apple’s pricing changes on some Mac configurations now appear relatively tame.
A recent example helps put this in perspective. Apple has moved away from 512GB base storage on certain MacBook Pro configurations, shifting to 1TB. And the price difference between those storage tiers is about $100. In today’s environment—where a standalone external 1TB drive can cost several times what it did before—that $100 bump for doubling internal storage doesn’t look as extreme as it once did.
There’s another problem beyond the higher prices: actually finding the drives. Many external SSD listings have been selling out, including on Apple’s own website, leaving buyers stuck refreshing pages, checking stores, or settling for whatever capacity is available. If supply remains tight and AI-driven demand continues to dominate the market, the outlook suggests these constraints could persist and potentially worsen as 2026 approaches.
For anyone shopping right now, the takeaway is simple: Macs aren’t the immediate pricing threat—external storage is. If you’ve been planning to buy an external SSD for backups or extra space, expect higher costs, limited inventory, and a market that may remain unstable for some time.
