ANALYSIS Aug 24, 2026
An Omdia survey (commissioned by Verge.io, covered by Blocks & Files / The Register, Aug 18) reports DRAM prices nearly doubled in Q1 alone with SSD prices up more than half — and no forecaster expects a return to 2025-style pricing soon. Nearly all respondents are consolidating storage layers, and roughly three-quarters are slowing on-prem AI deployments. The admin lesson: when media prices spike, efficiency features become budget tools — ONTAP inline dedupe/compression/compaction, thin provisioning, FabricPool tiering to object storage, and aggregate-level capacity math (see our usable-capacity explainer) all reduce how many terabytes you actually have to buy. Consolidation reviews are also the natural moment to re-check snapshot reserve and volume guarantees.