View Full Version : what's going on with hard drive prices ?
Mr Optimistic
31st Oct 2011, 16:10
Decide I need a new one, go and look, and the prices seem to have nearly doubled in a couple of months. Need to know the reason so I can decide about waiting. Anyone know ?
Mike-Bracknell
31st Oct 2011, 16:43
Shameless cut&paste from a marketing email below:
"Toshiba
Toshiba’s mobile HDD factory is under water and not producing at the moment, and we do not know when this will improve. Enterprise drives are not significantly affected; however, they are experiencing increased demand due to shortages from other HDD manufacturers.
Western Digital
The Western Digital Thailand factory is still under water and cannot produce drives. Their production estimate is currently at half their output capacity and this is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. We have no visibility as to when we any products will ship at this stage.
Hitachi
Although Hitachi’s factories are not under water, access to them is very limited. Their main motor supplier is currently not producing any products in Thailand, but Hitachi is hoping to move production to the Philippines. They have limited finished goods, and are currently not shipping anything.
Seagate
Seagate’s factories and suppliers seem to be the least affected; however, their output has been reduced by 25% this quarter, and this is coupled with increased demand due to shortages from other HDD manufacturers. Currently we have no visibility on the availability of some products, and very limited availability on others."
Obviously take the scale of scaremongering here with a pinch of salt as they're trying to sell you rental PCs etc, but given that the price went up as a result of the scarcity following the Japanese quake/tsunami as well, far eastern production is not likely to quickly return to pre-disaster levels.
Mr Optimistic
31st Oct 2011, 17:01
Thanks MB, that looks grim.
hellsbrink
31st Oct 2011, 17:27
It's very grim. The flooding in Thailand has meant that Asus have announced that they will actually run out of hard drives before the end on November. Obviously there is a knock-on effect as a large chunk of manufacturing is underwater so everyone is trying to get their disks from a smaller manufacturing base. Prices go up, it's expected, but they will go down again once Thailand returns to production once the floods subside and they clean all the factories out (if they can) but that could take quite some time.
Thankfully I have 720Gb on this machine, a 500Gb external (100Gb NTFS, the rest WBFS), a 1Tb external, 500Gb on the PYT's laptop, 0.5Tb on my other desktop, assorted other smaller hard disks AND I'm getting another "dead" PC (methinks it's only the PSU and I have a spare one) soon so I'll have another 500Gb disk to play with......
Should do for a couple of weeks........
green granite
31st Oct 2011, 17:50
Isn't there a saying about eggs and baskets?
mixture
31st Oct 2011, 17:55
Decide I need a new one, go and look, and the prices seem to have nearly doubled in a couple of months. Need to know the reason so I can decide about waiting. Anyone know ?
What has already been said above.... the floods. So yes, waiting will pay off (or tweaking the desired specs slightly, possibly).
Mr Optimistic
31st Oct 2011, 19:52
Fortunately got a replacement 2.5 inch drive for son's b*ggered HP laptop for £65 (a couple of weeks ago they were £49). I always put in a larger HDD when I get round to reinstalling Micro****e so will just wait I guess. Thanks for the replies.
Capetonian
5th Nov 2011, 08:59
National Geographic June 2011 has an article about Rare Earths, most of which come from China and anre supplied illegally.
It mentions that Dysprosium, used in hard drives, is now $212/pound whereas a few years ago it was around $7. So there's another contributory factor.
Brewster Buffalo
5th Nov 2011, 18:44
On the other hand I'd heard RAM prices have dropped so I've just added some more (500mb) to the laptop cost £15. When I enquired about RAM a few years ago it was £40...
mixture
5th Nov 2011, 22:40
Brewster Buffalo,
RAM is a case of supply and demand.
Prior to the emergence of Windows Vista there wasn't much need to have more than 1GB of RAM in your machine unless you were doing something intensive, since a tuned copy of XP would run quite happily within 1GB.
Come Vista & co, and there's been a general trend towards 2GB becoming the new minimum. Hence the prices have dropped as volumes have increased.
Having said which, RAM hasn't been particularly expensive over the past decade, and I would suggest you were potentially being overcharged if someone asked you for £40 for 512MB of RAM for an average desktop/laptop machine. But then I don't know the specifics of your situation, so I may be doing the seller an injustice.
Mike-Bracknell
5th Nov 2011, 23:58
Brewster Buffalo,
RAM is a case of supply and demand.
Prior to the emergence of Windows Vista there wasn't much need to have more than 1GB of RAM in your machine unless you were doing something intensive, since a tuned copy of XP would run quite happily within 1GB.
Come Vista & co, and there's been a general trend towards 2GB becoming the new minimum. Hence the prices have dropped as volumes have increased.
Having said which, RAM hasn't been particularly expensive over the past decade, and I would suggest you were potentially being overcharged if someone asked you for £40 for 512MB of RAM for an average desktop/laptop machine. But then I don't know the specifics of your situation, so I may be doing the seller an injustice.
Remember, we've also been down technological cul-de-sacs such as RAMBUS DRAM, which costs a fortune should you be unfortunate to need extra, and the law of supply & demand extends to those also hanging on to old kit where price will increase with scarcity caused by lack of need to supply.
mixture
6th Nov 2011, 07:13
Mike-Bracknell,
Very true.... one coin, two sides as they say. :cool:
OTOH, things could be a lot worse; we could be amongst the 500 dead to the north of Bangkok.
(Not fingerwagging - just mentioning)
Spurlash2
8th Nov 2011, 21:03
Link from The Register (http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/11/08/nidec_update/)
Spurlash2
17th Nov 2011, 15:49
Link HERE (http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/what-you-can-do-about-soaring-hard-drive-prices/) to 'Windows Secrets' article.
Mr Optimistic
17th Nov 2011, 21:08
Ended up buying a NAS drive with fitted 1 TB disk. Same price as a bare drive just about.
Edit: for some reason (presumably no stock), The Great River Company sent me a 2TB NAS for the £130 I paid for a 1TB model. Cheapest way I could get a HDD.
My rage against HDD prices has been replaced with intense annoyance at the price of f'ing paint. Just spent £18 for a mid-sized tin of std black. Bet its the environmentalists.