Friday, December 2nd 2011
HDD Parts Shortage Lessens: HDD Prices To Drop?
Nidec Corp, manufacturer of hard disc drive motors and other HDD components, has reported that after just six weeks since the Thailand floods hit, nine out of its ten factories are operational again, although not all are yet at full capacity. Supplies of HDDs should therefore slowly improve as the parts shortage eases, hopefully with the welcome consequence that the price should drift downwards. Nidec issued this statement about the situation:
We will continue our efforts to further improve the utilization of the factories whose operations have resumed and to bring the company's other flood-stricken factories back into operation to the earliest extent possible. The exact amount of damage and the effect of the floods on the company's performance are being assessed currently. We will continue to report on any actual or potential impact on the company's business performance in a prompt manner.There's more info in this Nidec update (PDF) and at xbit labs.
36 Comments on HDD Parts Shortage Lessens: HDD Prices To Drop?
I think there will be LESS DEMAND for HDD in the future. Yes, still a lot of demand, but less demand compared to SSD not having taken off so quickly with the help of the flooding.
Supply will be greater than demand... pushing HDD prices down further.
Seagate knows this and is therefore trying to buy up OEMs so they can control what is left of the market. See earlier Seagate news article.
Before the flood/shortage, it wasn't uncommon for 500 Gb for $40-50 (those are now +$100). 1TB went all the time for $50-60... I don't believe we'll get back to that regularly... and if they would it be 6 months or more...
If you can find them that is.
@ N-Gen - Yeah, exactly, those lesser capacity drives have been popping up while the selection for others has dissappeared and fairly dramatically.
Basically, all the prices pretty much doubled.
I checked to see 2TB prices.. nothing below 200$.
There has not been, in my 6 years on the scene, a worse time to buy a computer component..
we went from $60 for a 1TB Samsung F3 to around $320-340 for one.
Prices have dropped to more 'reasonable' levels now ($171) , but they are still a far cry from what they used to be before.
before the flooding i bought a 2tb western digital black, it was with shiping 128eu, now it's is 225eu without shipping