Rising Memory & Storage Costs Make On-Prem Hardware Uneconomical

About this episode

The episode discusses the rising costs of memory and storage and their impact on on-premises hardware versus cloud adoption.

Learn more about Cloud Field Day 25 here . The rising cost of memory and storage, driven by the massive AI build out, might make on-premises datacenters uneconomical, and drive more cloud adoption. This episode of the Tech Field Day podcast features Ned Bellavance, Jim Czuprynski, and Alastair Cooke considering whether it is better to wait out the shortages or design for their effects. The core problem is the significant increase in costs for RAM and storage components like SSDs and hard drives, which is making on-premises infrastructure upgrades financially challenging for many organizations. This surge in prices is largely driven by substantial, long-term procurement agreements made by major cloud providers and companies developing AI data centers, leading to a global supply constraint. There are differing strategies for businesses to cope with this environment, including enhancing resource efficiency, optimizing software, and potentially leveraging the secondary hardware market or extending the life of existing equipment. The conversation also delves into broader industry impacts, such as the potential for AI to self-optimize resource usage, the challenges in building new…

People in this episode

Host: Tech Field Day

Guests: Ned Bellavance, Jim Czuprynski, Alastair Cooke

Topics covered

• memory costs
• storage costs
• on-premises infrastructure
• cloud adoption
• AI impact
• resource efficiency

Keywords

• memory costs
• storage costs
• on-premises
• cloud adoption
• AI
• data centers
• resource efficiency

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Zero Defec, Cloud Field Day, AI

More episodes of Tech Field Day Podcast

• Enterprise AI Will Fail Without a Dedicated Data Strategy · June 9, 2026 · 27 min
• 110. You Can't Bet Your Company's Future on AI · June 2, 2026 · 31 min
• 109. We Can’t Trust Networks to Fix Themselves · May 26, 2026 · 25 min
• SPOTLIGHT: You Don’t Have To Pick Just One AI Network Presented by Cisco · May 19, 2026 · 29 min
• Mistaking Quantity for Quality in Tech and Life · May 12, 2026 · 34 min
• 106. AI Driven Networks are More Marketing Than Reality · May 5, 2026 · 20 min