If you're in the market for a hard drive or SSD, Act quickly! Otherwise, you may end up paying more than you want.

According to Taiwanese analyst firm TrendForce, storage makers Western Digital and now Seagate have sent letters to consumers warning them that the companies are raising hard drive prices. WD's letter says it will also raise prices on SSDs.

“(D) Demand recovery continues in many parts of our business and our reduced productivity is limiting our ability to meet all of our customers' demand and resulting in longer lead times.” Letter Says, which is signed by Seagate's Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer B.S.Tiah. “Consequently, we will apply the price increase immediately to new orders and for demand that exceeds the previously committed volume.”

WD sent one. A similar letter earlier this month. In it, WD warned that it is “seeing higher-than-expected demand across its flash and hard drive portfolio resulting in supply constraints.

“Given these circumstances, we will continue to implement price increases on flash and hard drive products this quarter, with some changes effective immediately,” wrote Scott Davis, senior vice president at WD. , such as Trendforce and TomsHardware. “These updates will apply to our entire product portfolio.”

The two companies sent letters to their trading partners, including PC manufacturers responsible for ordering hard drives and SSDs for PC production. But with two of the world's largest storage companies warning of price hikes, it's hard to believe that retail products won't be affected by such increases. In other words, if you are interested in upgrading your SSD or Buying an external hard drive or SSDPrices may increase in the near future.

However, there were warning signs. In November, analysts warned SSDs were going up in price.. This prediction seems to be coming true, and hard drive prices have also increased.

good news? Hard drives are usually priced at a fraction of the cost of SSDs. 1TB external Seagate hard drive It currently costs $60 on Amazon, while a quality WD 1TB external SSD is $109. Could these prices go up? It certainly looks possible.

Further reading: The best SSDs we've tested.