HDD Shortage To Go On And On And On

[qubit]

The recent Thailand floods appear to be taking a bigger toll than expected, with the effects of the shortages to be felt all the way into 2013, according to market research firm IDC. This isn't helped by the fact that the largest manufacturer of HDDs, Western Digital, was hit the hardest. As the situation is so volatile, companies such as HP, Dell & Lenovo are keeping watch on the market daily and are even sometimes having to accept drives of a lower spec if they are to ship some systems at all. As expected, the retail purchaser of hard disk drives comes bottom of the allocation list. IDCs John Rydning said in a statement: "I think the most painful period will occur now through February of next year. We expect the situation will improve, but it won't feel as if things are back to normal until 2013". There's more detail and analysis over at Network World.

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[CDdude55]

As long as they're ok, i don't really care about the HDD price hike.

 

[newtekie1]

Didn't the biggest manufacturer of parts of hard drives based in Thialand just report that 9 out of 10 of their factories were back up and running last week?

I think WD is just bullshitting at this point to try and keep prices higher.

 

[dicobalt]

So is WD doing anything to prevent this from happening again next year? Or the year after? Or ever? Or are they still going to operate a factory where water can go right inside and destroy all the manufacturing equipment worse than any earthquake, fire, or hurricane.

 

[qubit]

As long as they're ok, i don't really care about the HDD price hike.

You must be rich!

Didn't the biggest manufacturer of parts of hard drives based in Thialand just report that 9 out of 10 of their factories were back up and running last week?

I think WD is just bullshitting at this point to try and keep prices higher.

You're thinking of Nidec, the motor manufacturer, that we reported about here. But yeah, I'll bet those HDD companies will spin it out as long as possible to keep the prices inflated.

 

[Zubasa]

Didn't the biggest manufacturer of parts of hard drives based in Thialand just report that 9 out of 10 of their factories were back up and running last week?

I think WD is just bullshitting at this point to try and keep prices higher.

Exactly my thoughts, the title should be HDD price jacking to go on and on and on.

 

[CDdude55]

You must be rich!

Nope, in fact i'm probably the poorest person here. lol

The fluctuation of prices for a computer component is a petty issue when in comparison to why the price have sky rocketed (the flood). I'm more worried about how the humans are dealing with everything as opposed to how fast my computer components can come down in price.

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

I think WD is just bullshitting at this point to try and keep prices higher.

To better prove this fact, look at the prices of HD accessories, IE external enclosures, NAS boxes, etc, and you will see that THOSE went up too.

 

[qubit]

To better prove this fact, look at the prices of HD accessories, IE external enclosures, NAS boxes, etc, and you will see that THOSE went up too.

That really sucks. :shadedshu

 

[n-ster]

I just hope SSDs come down in price and take advantage of this

 

[El_Mayo]

ughhhh fuck that
I'll stick with 1 terabyte for a year more >

 

[JrRacinFan]

You know whenever I hear news about the hard drive shortage I think of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JyN6Obi7eI

And as I read this:

As the situation is so volatile, companies such as HP, Dell & Lenovo are keeping watch on the market daily and are even sometimes having to accept drives of a lower spec if they are to ship some systems at all

It could really happen if milk became that viral!?

 

[suraswami]

I thought WD and its part supplier factories are affected by the flood, shouldn't Seagate use this condition and exploit by pumping in more drives at cheaper prices to make up for their losses during their crap firmware issue?

WD has factories other than Thailand, so those factories are not good enough to increase production or what? What about the recent Hitachi purchase? They are still producing drives right?

I think this is all a stunt.

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

Seagate use this condition and exploit by pumping in more drives at cheaper prices to make up for their losses during their crap firmware issue?

That sounds perfectly logical, I see no reason why Seagate would not do this if they cared about the consumer.

HOWEVER, look at it from the eyes of Seagate. They don't have to up production by adding another shift, hire more workers, or change a damn thing, all they have to do is up prices.

Which sounds easier?

Seagate went along with this and said, oh we will just charge more and make a 100% higher profit.

This situation is a classic case of taking advantage of the need in the market, and PRICE FIXING.

Prove me wrong.

 

[newtekie1]

The problem is it isn't even all Seagate's doing. The retailers themselves are jacking up the prices more so than Seagate is. At this point, it doesn't really matter what Seagate charges, the retailers are going to milk the crap out of the situations. I mean, WD and Seagate are both raising prices, dont' get me wrong, but the retailers are certainly doing more to keep the prices high. The fact that they raised prices on drives they already had plenty of stock in, long before the shortage really should have affected them, is proof of that.

And really, I think everyone involved with the HDD business was getting sick of the rock bottom prices on hard drive. Just like memory manufacturers are getting sick of the rock bottom memory prices(some to the point of abandoning selling memory because it was no longer profitable). That is why pretty much every "smaller" HDD manufacturer has sold off their HDD decision to either Seagate or WD. The rock bottom prices made manufacturing and selling HDDs in anything less than super extreme quantities not profitable, and Seagate and WD are the only ones that could do that.

 

[jgrahl]

build them elsewhere, problem solved sort of, prices still high

 

[Disparia]

That sounds perfectly logical, I see no reason why Seagate would not do this if they cared about the consumer.

HOWEVER, look at it from the eyes of Seagate. They don't have to up production by adding another shift, hire more workers, or change a damn thing, all they have to do is up prices.

Which sounds easier?

Seagate went along with this and said, oh we will just charge more and make a 100% higher profit.

This situation is a classic case of taking advantage of the need in the market, and PRICE FIXING.

Prove me wrong.

It could be both. Jack prices now, increase production, allowing them to take a hammer to WD's knees when they have a leg to stand on again.

 

[Widjaja]

I guess WD could count this flood as a blessing in the long term if keeping the prices high for as long as they can is the way they like to roll.

 

[qwerty_lesh]

The retailers ! ! ! Rewr!

actually, that may be possible in your region, but in mine the Reseller channel is not altering their piss weak tiny margins at all.

It is the Distributors/Suppliers who adjust price due to the lack of inventory surplus. it is the Distributors who alter the price more even when they have ample surplus already.

Its the Suppliers! ! ! ! R0aR!

 

[newtekie1]

actually, that may be possible in your region, but in mine the Reseller channel is not altering their piss weak tiny margins at all.

It is the Distributors/Suppliers who adjust price due to the lack of inventory surplus. it is the Distributors who alter the price more even when they have ample surplus already.

Its the Suppliers! ! ! ! R0aR!

Yeah, in the US, most e-tailers pretty much doubled their prices the day the news hit that there were floods in Thailand and there would be a shortage. I know Newegg had thousands of drives on hand, their supplies shouldn't have been affected as quickly as the prices went up.

I'm sure everyone is upping their cut and the effect snowballs. But the main point I was trying to make was that the actual manufacturers aren't totally to blame for the price hike, everyone is taking advantage.

 

[Frizz]

Makes you think, maybe everything was on purpose because HDD's were becoming way too cheap . Bought my WD Green EARX 2TB Sata III 64MB Cache for only around 80 dollars, that is a freaking great deal and it performs just as good as the standard it's price is around 150ish now btw, bloody huge price hike.

 

[Widjaja]

Makes you think, maybe everything was on purpose because HDD's were becoming way too cheap . Bought my WD Green EARX 2TB Sata III 64MB Cache for only around 80 dollars, that is a freaking great deal and it performs just as good as the standard it's price is around 150ish now btw, bloody huge price hike.

Reminds me of the Petrol prices over here.
We had a petrol company open up and petrol prices dropped.
Didn't have to think about petrol costs when going for a road trip.

Then all of a sudden the oil thing happened and petrol priced stayed high.

 

[newtekie1]

Makes you think, maybe everything was on purpose because HDD's were becoming way too cheap . Bought my WD Green EARX 2TB Sata III 64MB Cache for only around 80 dollars, that is a freaking great deal and it performs just as good as the standard it's price is around 150ish now btw, bloody huge price hike.

Obviously the flooding wasn't on purpose. However, I do agree with you that everyone is taking this opportunity to hike the prices because they were too cheap before. A 2TB WD Black was selling for $150 and spiked up to $280, but has gone down a bit actually in the past few days to $250. In fact, looking at 1.5TB drives, it does look like a few of the drives have actually gone down in price the last few days, some haven't, but some have. Seems like a good sign to me. They still aren't anywhere near where they should be though.

 

[Fx]

Makes you think, maybe everything was on purpose because HDD's were becoming way too cheap .

maybe they lobbied the government hard enough to fire up HAARP for some 'environmental testing'

 

[Andrei23]

HDD manufacturers will get a slap in the face from SSD producers for this bs.