The DDR RAM Shortage – What It Means for Businesses and IT

In this episode of Act on Tech, we break down the growing concerns around the DDR RAM shortage and what it means for businesses, IT professionals, and everyday computer users.

Memory manufacturers are shifting production toward newer technologies and AI-driven infrastructure, leaving many to wonder how this will impact the availability and cost of DDR4 memory — still widely used in business environments today.

We’ll explain what DDR RAM is, why supply is tightening, and how these industry changes could affect hardware upgrades, system performance, and long-term IT planning.

If you rely on stable systems for your business, understanding these shifts can help you make smarter decisions and avoid unexpected costs down the line.

 For reliable IT support, network design, and long-term technology planning, visit www.alexcustomtech.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Are you ready to make technology work for you? Tune in to Act on Tech, the podcast where we break down the latest tech trends and show you how to boost your productivity at home and in your business. So, subscribe to Act On Tech today and visit alexcustomtech.com to see how we can take your business to the next level. That's Acton Tech, your guide to smarter tech for a smarter business. Alex Custom Tech, IT means integrity and trust.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Hello, hi, welcome to Acton Tech, where we talk all things technology. This is Alex of Alex Custom Tech, and today we're gonna talk about DDR RAM shortage. I'm gonna try to see if we can break it down. I'm gonna dip my my toe in the water if you will. I'm gonna see if I can talk to you guys about it because I haven't really touched on it at all. Um, if you listen to everybody out there talking about the shortage and how evil the companies are, and they're focusing on AI, and AI is bad, and this is bad, and that's bad, and everything is the world is ending, and yada yada yada. So um not that their arguments don't hold any water, but this is predictable in economics and how money flows and how business operates. So I'm gonna take a comprehensive approach to it when it comes to these things. I'm not one to point fingers and and and and say companies are evil because companies to me don't have the capacity to be evil, people are evil, not the companies, the companies are doing companies out here to make profits and for the shareholders, and that's what they're doing. It's a it's known as a what they call it, a fiduciary responsibility. So we have to approach it from that end. Like I know I know that the shortage affects us, but let's talk about it comprehensively. So, like I said, welcome back to Acton Tech, and we're gonna dive into the the RAM shortage, but we're gonna have to explain, define a couple of terms first, and then we're gonna dig into it a little bit. So, I guess you understand exactly where I'm coming from. Alright, so we're gonna talk about RAM shortage today. So, we're talking about RAM shortage, we're just talking about especially DDR memory supplies. Okay, and if you're running a small business IT infrastructure RAM shortages, especially in the current state, is gonna affect you, all right. So we're gonna break down what RAM is, watch what DDR RAM actually is, why supply is tightening, right? What it means for businesses and IT planning and why let me see what's going on here, yeah, and why you should consider what you should consider doing about it. Okay, so what you should consider doing all right, so let's talk about the first thing. What is DDR RAM? Right, DDR stands for double data rate, right? And it's referred to the types of memory used in most computing or most computers and servers, right? And RAMs and RAM is a short RAM is for short random access memory, right? And it's a temporary working memory for computers used by the application or loads of files or for quick data reference. So let me see if we can break that down because it's a mouthful, right? So your computer has a couple of different places which store information and depends on when it needs it, it pulls it. So, like when you have a file on your computer and you you you write a text document or whatever, yeah, that's stored on your we used to call it hard drive, but I've now they are MVME, but it's the it's the it's the local memory of the computer, right? It means that it sits on the computer and all your files and applications, everything sits on you, or your settings sit on there, right? But it's like in a drawer, right? And then consider the drawer, the hard drive, or the MVME, and your desk as random memory. It's random memory because you move things in and out of it, like it doesn't have you know things are on there when you're immediately using it, and once you're putting it away, then you go back into the filing cabinet. So you have the filing cabinet and you have your desk. Random memory is your desk, right? And that's what the RAM is right now. Of course, you have caching too and these other things, but I don't want to get too technical and it kind of like blow you out of the water, right? So that's what we're talking about. Random memory talking about what your computer is actually using now while you're operating it, right? And and we have different different kinds of RAM over the years. So you have DDR3, DDR4, DDR5. Now, DDR5 is the one that the manufacturers are focusing on right now, they're building those out because those are really good for data seta data centers and GPUs and everything tied to the old AI thing, right? So that's where the money is coming from now. That's where the demand is, so they're targeting that market, that's what's happening. Okay, so each generation brings improvement in speed and capacity. Talk about the ramps, right? Talk about DDR3, 4, and 5. Right now, DDR4 is still widely used in laptops and and computers and systems and your office and all that stuff, right? But DDR5 is becoming more in demand. So why? So why did there a shortage, right? The shortages, but like I said before, several industry shifts is happening at the same time, multiple things happening at the same time, right? And and the argument is not if it's good or bad, it's just how things are happening, and and some of these things that are happening, I want to be the first to say, it's again like we talked about I AI before and my stance on it, and a lot of these things are just projections, right? They don't really know where things are gonna end up, right? Money is flowing in one direction, and it's still uncertain, but companies are positioning themselves to make the money that's been that's been flowing in a certain direction. So one of the major factors in the manufacturing industry right now, the manufacturing transition right now, is that memory manufacturers like Samsung and how you even pronounce this one? SK HYN HENEX and Micron, those are the three companies that make RAM, right? They are shifting their production capacity towards DDR5, which is the high performance one that what goes inside the AIs and the GPUs, right? That's what they're fixing because that's what the demand is because as demand for AI hardware increases, companies are prioritizing memory for GPUs, servers, and AI architecture. That means that less production capacity is being used for DDR4 and the other ones from before, which is kind of where the supply is dropping off, right? So other factors in supply chain is is adjusting to the whole demand, and that's what you're really seeing. So manufacturers sometimes intentionally reduce supply in order to stabilize pricing. Remember, you know, if you did economics and if there's too much of one thing, the the price goes down, and if there's less of it, the price goes up, right? It's supply and demand. So they're focusing on where the money is, right, and then kind of manage the price. You might be like, Well, that's evil. Well, that's business, right? So, but there are things you can do, right? So let's go. So finally, the growing demand from enterprise and cloud computing environment, which also put pressure on the memory supply chain, right? Again, like I'm not using right now, I don't think I have any computers. Mouth online, I have the gaming computer, I have a DDR5 in it, but most of them I have is like DDR3 or DDR DDR4 in mind, but again, we're running out of those because they're not really making them in mask anymore like they used to. So you wanna like some I'm thinking about like maybe I should buy some buy some backups, right? So why does it matter for business? Well, it matters because by wondering what is we're wondering about going on with DDF5 and the exit and the exiting of it, right? Reality, most most but business computers are still running DDR4 systems, um, office workstation are still running that and virtualization hosts and many laptops purchased in the last five to seven years are running DDR4 memory and you know are upgraded DDR4 memory. If DDR4 memory production is slowing down, while the demands remain steady, because the demand is steady, right? We have to start your start to price increase, which is kind of what we're seeing price increases and and availability issues, right? So prices going up, people are latching on to them, and and you might never even forget them. So upgrading your computer is not gonna be a little bit more difficult than it was before for small businesses and can impact smaller businesses, so CPU upgrades, server expansion, virtualization environment, building that out, and even computer repair, which you know or feel about that. Computer repair is gonna be a little bit more difficult. Sometimes a simple sometimes simple adding a RAM to a computer now to extend things gonna be a little bit more expensive than just buying a new one. That will change eventually too. So, what should I what should I t professionals consider doing? Right, so IT professionals should just start storing things down there or start planning strategically, right? So you start like storing things outside, you know, you know, you know where your your servers are, you know where your lot your computers are in the office, you know what those things are. You want to start storing things away so you can do repairs. So you know, running manufacture-based DDR 4 system might you might want to like stock critical sphere parts, evaluate upgrade timeline, make extend it out, maybe make it longer so that you can watch and see where the market is going. Um you know uh plan long-term platform transition, you know. If you can buy stuff now instead of waiting, you buy stuff now instead of waiting. Right the bigger picture bigger situation situation is remaining system is a remind reminder. Uh the the situation is a reminder of the importance about technology and how it functions and how hardware or how you deal with hardware in and how hardware market is really always shifting. What seems to be a small component can be a big deal later on, and I've seen it multiple times in this industry, right? So, like right now, RAM is a problem. I remember I think they're running out of um blue labels to hard drive, it's actually a part of a massive global supply chain, and it's gonna and and involving semiconductors and fabrication plants and manufacture capacity and enterprise demand and technology and transition, right? That's it's a it's a it's a global shifting, right? And again, we don't know what it's gonna look like at the other end because again, like AI, it's a lot of money flowing to AI, and we don't know what it's gonna look like, what are the features we're gonna be working with, and what are the features we're not gonna work in it. All the data centers they make, are they gonna need all these data centers? Again, we don't know, but the market is responding to the money flow, and the manufacturers because I don't tell you three manufacturers that I'm making, I'm making um DDR ramps. One of them, from my understanding, is not even making DDR4 or three anymore, they're just focusing on five exclusively, right? So you're down to really two that's gonna be working on stuff that that that we MSPs can use. You're still gonna get your DDR4 out there. If you look, it's gonna be a little more expensive. I think GPUs are like a couple thousand dollars now, right? So, again, this is just gonna happen after you write it out, buy it if you really want it now. I mean, it can it's just one of those things you have to ask yourself, do I really need this right now or can I wait? It's gonna get sorted out, it always gets sorted out. The market determines that, right? So, my I think is a don't panic, right? If you can put some parts aside so you can make things last a little longer, by all means do that. Um I'm doing that, right? So that's just the way how things work right now. I'm gonna do some more research on this, and I'm gonna probably talk about this a little bit more, and I'm gonna have to talk about a little bit more about AI also and how it affects small businesses, right? And this topic and other topics related to this. I didn't want to go too much into this, but again, it's coming up, and I've been talking about it in the tech community, so I'm not gonna drop my my hat in the ring. But so what DDRAM storage may not take the headlines right now. Well, me is so that the tech guys are talking about it on our end. A lot of people don't even know entirely what's going on or understand it. That's kind of where I come in, right? Something you got something you gotta pay attention to and and watch where the trend is going, right? So, again, I do podcasts every Wednesdays. If you want to hang out with me on Wednesdays, and here we'll talk about technology, how it applies to you and your business. Just come take a ride with us, right? On a side note, um, I just relaunched Alex Acton Alex Custom Tech website, um rearranged it a little bit with now MSP 100% focused. Um, and if you want to reach out to me, you can go to the website and reach out to me from there. I am also making some changes to my social media. I still have the same links, but of course, I'm gonna be doing more posts on there, and I'm gonna be also putting it putting up more blog pop blog blog posts. So you're gonna see a lot more activity on the website and so on and so forth. So hang out with us here on Acton Tech, right? And like I always say, stay productive. I hope this topic really helped you. Um I should dig into it a little bit deeper, but I want to kind of go on over a little talk about what DDR5 is, what DDR, what ROM is, right? And give you a little bit of synopsis of what's going on. I mean, I could dig into this deeper, and I probably am going to, but I want to make sure I get this one up here, maybe as an introduction to the shortage, and we can talk about it a little bit more because we can talk about GPUs yet, and we didn't talk about um what each company is what each manufacturer is doing, and we didn't talk about you know the war and how that's gonna affect everything, also, because again, this is helium, you know, helium is a part of the manufacturing process of making chips. That's gonna be a shortage of that too. So it's like it's multiple things. The shortage of the on the RAM was before the war, but again, that's gonna add on to the whole thing. So, again, this is a much deeper, much comprehensive topic, and I'm just really glassing over it right now. So, I want to make sure that you understand, but at least now you know what RAM is, what the big deal is with the DDR5s, right? And and why there's a shortage, and also if there's no takeaway from this, this is what my problem is with when I listen to content about this. Companies are evil, they're not evil, they're they're making money for their shareholders and the and the people who have invested in them, right? They're going where the money is. That's what companies do. We need to stop treating companies like say they're human beings, they're not human beings, they don't care about how you and I feel. If you have money and you're the only customer, and you're the one spending the money, by all means, they'll make it for you. Listen, the AI manufacturers and the the the um the industry right now is AI focused. Um, Nvidia, Google, Meta, right, are all dropping billions of dollars on on infrastructure for the AI rollouts. Okay, your little your little computer gaming PC is not the focus right now, and it's not nothing against you personally, just how things are shaking out, they're going where the money is. That's how capitalism works, it's always that way, okay? So you have to just navigate at space. It's not for you to point finger for and be upset about, it's just how it's always been. They're not evil, they're making money, right? That's what their purpose. The reason why we even have them is because they're making money. That's the only reason why they get up in the morning and drink the coffee and go out into the world is to make money. You can't we want you wanna feel sorry for you because you don't have you don't have a DDR5. Seriously, so that's kind of what my take on it is. So you have to navigate the space as it is. You don't maybe maybe you don't need a DDR5 right now. Maybe you can't ride it out until it's gonna come down, it's always come down. So just wait and see what happens, or if you can grab it now, grab it now before it gets even higher. Those are your options, but whining about it doesn't make any sense. What you're gonna do, have the government make rules so then force them to make DDR files for you. It doesn't make any sense, so you have to not understand what's going on and then navigate the space as it is. That's Alex custom tech stance, that's acron tech stance in this thing. So you understand now what the shortage is, right? And how and now you can get some ideas how to navigate it. Like I always say, stay productive.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Hey there, Jersey and Eastern PA businesses, ready to take your IT game to the next level? Get excited because Alex Custom Tech is coming your way. We're your go-to for IT support, bringing integrity and trust to every service. From network upgrades to virtualization and even relocating your IT setup, we've got you covered. Stay tuned as we put the finishing touches on our new site. Alex Custom Tech, helping your business thrive with top-notch IT support right in your backyard.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Welcome to Alex Custom Tech, your trusted partner for computer service and repair since 2010. We provide professional consulting services to clients throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania, offering everything from computer repair to network design and installation. Our focus is on building efficient, results-driven professional relationships with our clients. We work with you to create customized solutions that fit your specific needs, whether you're an individual or an organization. Our comprehensive IT consulting services are designed to make your technology work more effectively for you. We provide solutions that meet your business's performance and utilization demands. Because we understand that when your technology doesn't work, neither do you. We specialize in network design and implementation, taking the pain out of network creation, maintenance, and repair. Our team understands that even minimal downtime can impact your productivity and revenue. That's why we offer 20 or 7 proactive monitoring and maintenance to strategically optimize and protect your infrastructure. For residential and business clients, we provide affordable and reliable computer repair services, available both on site and at our location. Our commitment to quality is reflected in our satisfied customers' experiences. We service New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Alex Custom Tech is ready to serve your IT needs. Contact us today at 855-668-6315 or email info at AlexCustom Tech. To discover how Alex Custom Tech can help optimize your technology solutions.