The 2011 Worldwide Hard Drive Shortage
- Thread starter Candlelight
- Start date
No, I think it's something like 30% of the world's HDD supply. So them being messed up has a significant affect on prices and avaialbily, but it's not like all worldwide production has come to a standstill. Before the flood, worldwide projected HDD sales in Q4 2011 were 180 million and now it's down to about 120.
Numbers and stuff
Ah, ok, thanks - some credible numbers there - odd that a 30% shortfall can lead to a doubling of retail price but that's capitalism for you.
That's the law of supply and demand for you.
The price elasticity of supply suggests some profiteering is going on, but that's the nature of the beast.
It should also be noted that the parts of a single HDD often come from different countries, so while HDDs might be assembled in China and most of its parts come from there, some may come from Thailand, like the motors that rotate the drive.
But there's also some speculation going on. Since it's unclear when production in Thailand will start again and to what degree everyone will try to hold on to the drives they still have and avoid running out of them.
Yes, mine! I just bought a new computer and waited a bit too long to do it. I eventually got a smaller HDD to arrive at the same price (500 GB instead of 1 TB). I don't need that much disk space, anyway, and I have my music and video files on two external drives, which is handier now that I have two computers (a desktop and a laptop).
Whether full systems are affected depends on whether they are already built and stored somewhere or whether they're being built when ordered. I suspect that the second method is prevalent. That's why I advised a friend to buy the computer she's been fancying as soon as possible before the price goes up.
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Jeez, are you trying to ruin the vacation I'm planning for next summer?
Sorry, mate.
Btw, before you go. Learn swedish. Thailand is under swedish occupation. We decided to be extra cruel agaist them so we sent lawyers instead of soldiers....
Yes, today, actually!
I got a new computer yesterday, so went to the local PC World today to get a new external drive for back-ups. The salesman mentioned that Thailand is responsible for approximately 30% of external hard drive production, which has led to significant price increases. He reckoned that the supply shortage has added about £20 to the cost of a 500GB drive, for instance.
They were were also signs up limiting purchases to 2 drives per customer too, for the same reason. He also mentioned that it's driven an increase of sales for their cloud storage subscription service for back-ups instead.
I bought a LaCie Minimus hard drive a month ago (from Best Buy's website). Since then, the price has gone up $20 and it's not available for shipping anymore.
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