# Hard Drive prices



## Jetster (Oct 27, 2011)

I don't know whats going on but HD prices are on the increase. Must be a shortage. Went to look at another F4 2Tb and the price went from $70 to $129 on Newegg


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## pigulici (Oct 27, 2011)

in my country in 1 day it go up the price on hdd from 60-150%, because of storm in thailand(they say), even this are hdd from stock


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## entropy13 (Oct 27, 2011)

Jetster said:


> I don't know whats going on but HD prices are on the increase. Must be a shortage. Went to look at another F4 2Tb and the price went from $70 to $129 on Newegg



Floods in Thailand. Many HDD factories there...you know what happens.


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## Tatty_One (Oct 27, 2011)

Floods dont get current stock in retailers in the UK wet though , I just ordered some new kit this week, amongst that was a Samsung F4 HDD, I left the kit in my "Basket" for 24 hours before ordering, in that time the price had gone up over 10%.


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## entropy13 (Oct 27, 2011)

Tatty_One said:


> Floods dont get current stock in retailers in the UK wet though ,



Isn't that obvious already? 

The flooding meant there would be a shortage, not necessarily "the drive you just bought got flooded."


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## Jetster (Oct 27, 2011)

That and they need to remodel the factory


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## Tatty_One (Oct 27, 2011)

entropy13 said:


> Isn't that obvious already?
> 
> The flooding meant there would be a shortage, not necessarily "the drive you just bought got flooded."



What i meant was that future stock would be affected by your point but unless retailers are just trying to "Milk" their customers, it should not effect current stock..... although it seems it is/they are.


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## Jack Doph (Oct 27, 2011)

Tatty_One said:


> What i meant was that future stock would be affected by your point but unless retailers are just trying to "Milk" their customers, it should not effect current stock..... although it seems it is/they are.



Yes it would. When demand for an item outstrips supply, then a price-rise is put in place to slow demand.
Economics 101


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## Tatty_One (Oct 27, 2011)

Jack Doph said:


> Yes it would. When demand for an item outstrips supply, then a price-rise is put in place to slow demand.
> Economics 101



Agreed, however it seemed a very short time span between the flood and the price hike's 8000 miles away, like 10 minutes lol.


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## pigulici (Oct 27, 2011)

yes, they 'milk" us, to short period from flood to price up


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## Tatty_One (Oct 27, 2011)

Damn, that 10% hike I paid earlier in the week for my F4 was nothing, it's a good job I got it then because it's now doubled!


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## Jack Doph (Oct 27, 2011)

Tatty_One said:


> Agreed, however it seemed a very short time span between the flood and the price hike's 8000 miles away, like 10 minutes lol.



I'm certainly not denying the fact that they're milking the situation for all they can, however, HDD stocks aren't exactly humongous and as it's been estimated to take roughly 4 months or so to get supply up to scratch again, HDDs will be scarce on the ground.

Bad news for all of us, no matter the reason why :/


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## pantherx12 (Oct 27, 2011)

Well there goes my friends HDD upgrade.

Decent 1tb drives now cost around £100-110 in the UK. (175 USD)


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## Frick (Oct 27, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> Well there goes my friends HDD upgrade.
> 
> Decent 1tb drives now cost around £100-110 in the UK. (175 USD)



Same here.

2.5inch 1TB drives is more than 3.5 inchers. 

I knew prices would go up, but €90 for a 250GB drive? Phew. And just as I'm about to run out of storage.


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## Tatty_One (Oct 27, 2011)

Jack Doph said:


> I'm certainly not denying the fact that they're milking the situation for all they can, however, HDD stocks aren't exactly humongous and as it's been estimated to take roughly 4 months or so to get supply up to scratch again, HDDs will be scarce on the ground.
> 
> Bad news for all of us, no matter the reason why :/



Yes, but when you think that seagate have probably got an import warehouse somewhere near a harbour in the UK with 250,000 units in for distribution it's a bit sad lol.


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## Jack Doph (Oct 27, 2011)

Tatty_One said:


> Yes, but when you think that seagate have probably got an import warehouse somewhere near a harbour in the UK with 250,000 units in for distribution it's a bit sad lol.



Well, my first thought was in regards to Seagate to begin with, as they have a manufacturing plant in China (thus unaffected by those floods) that pumps out over a million HDDs every year.
I figured that should compensate supply somewhat. However, that still only equates to roughly 2800 HDDs per day, which is really a drop in the bucket for world-wide supply :/

That said, of course we're being milked :/


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## taylor. (Oct 29, 2011)

Yes, in Argentina also increased, 50% approximately. I hope to be regularized asap.


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## AsRock (Oct 29, 2011)

pigulici said:


> yes, they 'milk" us, to short period from flood to price up



I don't think you can call it milking, more about covering their losses over this bad time


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## jsfitz54 (Oct 29, 2011)

Western Digital in Thiland is closed.

Seagate is limping along.

60% of all drives manufactured there.

It has been all over the business news.

Short supply expected to effect large companies like Dell, HP, etc...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/9907952

You can google for other business news.


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## Darkleoco (Oct 29, 2011)

Really glad I got my computer built before this happened or I would be pissed :/


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## Soylent Joe (Oct 29, 2011)

On the contrary it seems SSD prices are going down. I've seen a 120GB for like $140, wheras it was over $200 just a month or so ago. Hopefully the ol' faithful mechanical drives won't become priced out of reach :/


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## taylor. (Oct 29, 2011)

Soylent Joe said:


> On the contrary it seems SSD prices are going down. I've seen a 120GB for like $140, wheras it was over $200 just a month or so ago. Hopefully the ol' faithful mechanical drives won't become priced out of reach :/



I hope the same, with the high prices  there would be not relationship .. but, why the SSD prices are going down?, I don't understand


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## TRWOV (Oct 29, 2011)

Tatty_One said:


> What i meant was that future stock would be affected by your point but unless retailers are just trying to "Milk" their customers, it should not effect current stock..... although it seems it is/they are.



It does affect current stock. Let's say that the shop buys hard drives for $30 a pop and they stock 30 of them ($900). If the price from the manufacturer goes up to $40 they must raise the price too on current stock or else they would stock less of them ($900 / $40 = 22).


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## Goodman (Oct 29, 2011)

I almost bought a Seagate 2TB drive two weeks ago for $75...
Now it cost $139 

Looks like buying a new HDD will wait much longer


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## newtekie1 (Oct 29, 2011)

Tatty_One said:


> Yes, but when you think that seagate have probably got an import warehouse somewhere near a harbour in the UK with 250,000 units in for distribution it's a bit sad lol.



Whenever there is a disruption in the distribution chain the prices will go up.  It isn't milking anything, it is the fact that they've already been told that their next re-order will cost twice as much, so they have to raise prices on the current stock so they make enough money to re-order at the higher prices.


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## Tatty_One (Oct 30, 2011)

newtekie1 said:


> Whenever there is a disruption in the distribution chain the prices will go up.  It isn't milking anything, it is the fact that they've already been told that their next re-order will cost twice as much, so they have to raise prices on the current stock so they make enough money to re-order at the higher prices.



Well there are 2 ways of looking at that......

!.  They are told next order will cost double.... so they charge double (plus their margin) when they get the new stock.
2.  Next stock will cost double so they make sure they sell their existing stock by selling it at the price they actually paid + margin in order to ensure they do actually generate some income...... 

If every retailer just doubled their prices on existing stock that they paid half what they were actually charging, more and more consumers would sit back and wait until the floods were gone and the factories started producing again..... thing is, with a hard drive, unless yours has actually failed, there is no urgency for most users.


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## newtekie1 (Oct 30, 2011)

Tatty_One said:


> Well there are 2 ways of looking at that......
> 
> !.  They are told next order will cost double.... so they charge double (plus their margin) when they get the new stock.
> 2.  Next stock will cost double so they make sure they sell their existing stock by selling it at the price they actually paid + margin in order to ensure they do actually generate some income......
> ...



The problems with those:

1.) Margins are so tight, if you bought 100 drives at $40 and resell them at $45, you end up with $4,500 to buy the next 100 drives at, but the prices for the next batch of drives is now $80...you can't buy 100 drives with only $4,500.  Yes, you could just buy 55 drives instead, but you just sold 100 drives in a week, and you might run out.
2.) If everyone is raising their prices, people will buy no matter what.  Generally even hard drives are being bought out of necessity.  Yes, there are some that can wait for prices to go down again, but the majority are probably buying because they need the drive.


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## Jetster (Dec 27, 2011)

I can believe HD prices are still going up. I have an extra 1Tb was thinking of selling Newegg has it listed to $169. I paid $52 for it 15 months ago. Maybe I will hang on to it


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