Chia's cryptocurrency is causing a shortage of storage drives

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Information indicates that cryptocurrency miners in China are purchasing as many HDDs and SSDs as possible for the storage-based cryptocurrency Chia. GPU-dependent gamers are grappling with the supply of high-end graphics cards due to miners purchasing all the cards available. However, the upcoming cryptocurrency could pose similar problems for the storage market.

Chia is a cryptocurrency that aims to provide a more energy-efficient way of generating currency by relying on unused computer storage capacity rather than GPU-based calculations. The more unused storage space the metal offers to supply the coin as part of the network, the greater the profit. And the prospect of a greener cryptocurrency appears to have triggered the storage market.

According to a report by HKEPC, participants in China are purchasing high-capacity storage disks in bulk from 4 TB to 18 TB. It is believed that panic buying may lead to a shortage of USB flash drives as prices increase, making high-capacity drives difficult to obtain.

This is similar to what happened in the high-end graphics card market, which prompted Nvidia to reduce the potential of mining and also urged retailers to sell GPUs to home users as a priority over the metal.

Given a large number of read and write operations required for Chia tokens, storage disks destined for bimetallic consumers who are targeting enterprise-oriented storage disks will not be targeted. Some storage drive manufacturers are taking new buying patterns into account.

In the case of the Chinese storage disk maker, Jiahe Jinwei, both 1 and 2 terabyte (TB) and 2 TB NVMe M.2 SSDs, Gloway and Asgard, were sold, despite restrictions in place to prevent group purchases of consumers drives. The company is increasing production to match demand, and it is also said: It is developing specialized SSDs that specifically target this type of mining.

Given it is a relatively new cryptocurrency, the growing demand for storage disks is relatively small at the moment, but the requirements for the miners could grow over time if Chia gains more support.