Hard Disk Drive Shortage May Persist Through 2013
There is quite a bit of confusing speculation about how long the computer industry will have to deal with the shortage of hard drives caused by the Thailand flood.
IHS, for example, believes that the situation will gradually improve beginning in Q1 2012 and could even result in excess supply as the currently added production of HDDs outside of Thailand is added to the production ramp as fabs in the country return to full production capability.
However, there are much more pessimistic analysts, such as John Rydning from IDC, which believe that the impact will be felt into 2013.
"I think the most painful period will occur now through February of next year," Rydning said in a quote published by Computerworld. "We expect the situation will improve, but it won't feel as if things are back to normal until 2013. "Rydning believes that HDD makers will eb able to meet "immediate demand" in the second half of 2012.
However, for now, the shortage is already forcing computer buyers to buy what is available and not what they want. Computerworld quotes Lenovo stating that some buyers will have to settle for off-spec HDDs in its products. Computerworld said that 750 GB, 320 GB, 250 GB and 160 GB drives are unavailable for some Thinkpad notebooks. Western Digital, which was hardest hit by the flood, recently said that it has restarted its hard drive production in one of its buildings, while all other facilities "remain under approximately two feet of water."
The only concern is that it would need to be headquartered somewhere not in the US or in a county that bows to the will of US law, because any new startup hardware company will get sued every day and night for patent and trademark infringements if the nation it is established in has the horrible patent / copyright system the US has.
Only think I can suggest is that you veer away from hard disks, and make is as unprofittable as possible to sell them at rediculous prices. Lowering demand.
That said, time to make SSD more affordable!
I feel like they need to figure out their stability and firmware issues first... cough ocz...
Only think I can suggest is that you veer away from hard disks, and make is as unprofittable as possible to sell them at rediculous prices. Lowering demand.
The only concern is that it would need to be headquartered somewhere not in the US or in a county that bows to the will of US law, because any new startup hardware company will get sued every day and night for patent and trademark infringements if the nation it is established in has the horrible patent / copyright system the US has.
What I got from this is that they will return to normal in 2014. Even though English is not my native language, I think you meant "persist till 2013"
Anyway, I see vendors are still being dicks about older stock, selling Samsung Spinpoint F1's (which date back to 2006-2007) at insane prices. They're clearly taking advantage of the flooding situation instead of just being happy they can finally get rid of them.
What I really would like to know is how this will effect the production of 4 and 6TB drives which are supposed to come out this year. Perhaps we will see a permanent shift of SSDs for system drives, and HDDs for data storage. Just stop producing anything smaller than 500GB.
My bet is that most companies will be back to normal prices next fall because the companies less effected will want to bury and steal as many customers as possible from those who will take longer to recover.
That is what google is for, and they are both well known groups.
So they can't afford to replace the stock once they sell it!
Brilliant!
Your English is fine, your economics are what you should worry about.
Doing it when you still have 2 feet of water in there...well...I think it still can be done. Certainly more difficult. You need a wall of sand bags a few feet from the structure surrounding it and pumps running 24 hours a day. If there is no power? Well install solar on the roof. All doable.
I'd think they would be acting with a little more urgency; after all the first up will rake in the most profit.