Seagate and Western Digital predict a grim future for storage media sales TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. Seagate and Western Digital predict a grim future for storage media sales By Luke Hughes published 21 September 2022 Sales in physical and cloud media are both down (Image credit: Shutterstock / Daniel Krason) Audio player loading… Western Digital and Seagate have revealed hard drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD) sales have declined throughout 2022, and that "the situation is getting worse". Western Digital CEO David Goeckeler made the comments (opens in new tab) at the recent Goldman Sachs technology conference, adding that he has little confidence in the company achieving its sales revenue projection of around $3.6-3.8 billion in its final quarter of the year. For its part, Seagate has also revised its revenue projections for the recent quarter, going down from $2.5 billion to $2.1 billion. CEO Dave Mosley, in his own appearance at the conference (opens in new tab), said, "everyone's just taking a little bit of a pause" from investing in storage of any type, referring to the trend as a "multi-quarter correction". Storage industry woes Goeckeler noted that even investments in business cloud storage from reputable providers are down, so the current downturn in physical sales can't be wholly attributed to the post-pandemic trend of businesses investing in cloud storage to facilitate work-from-home allowances. Mosley instead claims that the downturn in sales comes from a lack of interest and support from both the corporate and consumer levels, which he said was unusual for this time of year. Goeckeler was more positive overall about WD's gross consumer revenue, claiming that its SanDisk brands are a "gem of consumer business." Goeckeler also claimed that the spectre of COVID-19 was keeping costs high across the board, reducing WD's gross margins. "And then hopefully, at some point, we're going to be out of COVID. I mean, COVID has kind of just an all the additional costs we have, whether it's logistics or keeping our employees safe or all the other kinds of things we have with COVID, those will essentially recede and we'll be able to get back to the margins we expect out of the business. We're in a bit of a low right now because of that."READ MORE> Check out our list of the best NAS hard drives > The rise of SSDs is pushing the hard drive market closer to the brink > Looking for a boot drive? Here's why you should go for an SSD, not an HDD Between pandemic recovery and both companies suffering from reduced demand in Chinese markets, it's no wonder that the storage media industry is having trouble all round. The industry-wide "correction" is still in its early days, but, thinking forward, cloud storage does have clear, built-in advantages over physical offerings for cost and convenience. As a result, we can only speculate whether physical media will continue to be quite so readily available and cost-effective in the foreseeable future as businesses and consumers become less interested in keeping their data close.Here's a list of the best rugged hard drives right now Luke HughesGraduate Writer Luke Hughes holds the role of Graduate Writer at TechRadar Pro, producing news, features and deals content across topics ranging from computing to cloud services, cybersecurity, data privacy and business software. See more Computing news Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to theTechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. MOST POPULARMOST SHARED1My days as a helpful meat shield are over, thanks to the Killer Klown horror game2One of the world's most popular programming languages is coming to Linux3It looks like Fallout's spiritual successor is getting a PS5 remaster4I tried the weirdest-looking Bluetooth speaker in the world, and I utterly adore it5You may not have to sell a body part to afford the Nvidia RTX 4090 after all1We finally know what 'Wi-Fi' stands for - and it's not what you think2Best laptops for designers and coders 3Miofive 4K Dash Cam review4Logitech's latest webcam and headset want to relieve your work day frustrations5Best offers on Laptops for Education – this festive season Technology Magazines (opens in new tab)● (opens in new tab)The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviewsFrom$12.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)