Western Digital factories flooded, HDD prices on the rise

[Extraterrestrial]

So I was thinking today of buying a new 2 TB HDD and when I went to the store to check new models, I was shocked to discover that HDD prices doubled in the past two weeks due to flooding in Thailand which crippled Hard-Drive Suppliers.

Do you guys know when will the prices decrease?

Prices for hard drives have jumped by as much as 50 percent within one week, market research firm IHS said. About a quarter of all hard drives are manufactured in Thailand and it appears that all major vendors are affected in some way.

Western Digital previously said that it may see a revenue decline of about 60 percent in the current quarter and told German publication Golem.de that it will be able to produce only 22 to 26 million drives this quarter, instead of the planned 58 million units. A spokesperson said that WD "currently waits for the factories to dry" to be able to restart its manufacturing tools. What makes matters worse are the usually thin profit margins in the HDD industry, which means that manufacturers typically have only five to seven days of material supply.

A Seagate manager told CRN India that the company expects and "acute" shortage of drives and that the manufacturer expects prices to increase. However, there was no information how sharp this increase can be. Both WD and Seagate said that the floods in Thailand have created a problem for the industry that will take several quarters to resolve.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagate-wd-hard-disk-drive-thailand-flood,13802.html

[ParamouR]

I taught the major factories where in China

[C3PO]

So now is the time to sell mine for double price :)

[leechmodder]

I remember seeing this news a month or two back and yes, the prices have reached a new high compared to prices that were before the calamity. going for a smaller SSD than a 1TB WD Black seems more logical in this scenario. I was looking to buy a mechanical HDD but I guess plans are on hold now :(

[Resurrection]

I have an external drive by a brand called Buffalo... Look for it mate, they give great service..

[leechmodder]

I am not a big fan of external HDDs I have had issues with them earlier. May be I don't handle them carefully, they don't seem to last much. One of my portable HDDs had issues with being detected, another would timeout(?) while transferring data, yet another had bad sectors develop pretty quickly. Since then I have lost faith in portable HDDs. To be fair, I do have a portable WD 1TB(which incidentally is a replacement drive) running okay till now. In short, I like hdds which are stable and bolted to the CPU!

[ParamouR]

off topic.: How long does an external drive last 10 years

[leechmodder]

off topic.: How long does an external drive last 10 years

Where did you get this?

[ParamouR]

Where did you get this?

the quantity of shock you portray make me feel this is not more than 5 year then