We Could Run Out of Hard Drives Soon, Says Analyst
The ongoing shortage of hard disk drive supply is expected to worsen and peak in early 2012, analysts expect.
Gus Richard from Piper Jaffray told Cnet that "we could run out of drives by the end of November."
Caused by the dramatic flooding in Thailand, hard drive prices have already shot up by 10 to 60 percent, but Richard is concerned that PC manufacturers especially are not taking enough precaution to deal with the shortage.
"Nobody seems to be really paying attention. Everyone overreacted to the disaster in Japan. And now I think they're underreacting," he told Cnet. The estimate is that supply will fall about 60 million units short of a demand of 180 million drives and PC manufacturers will not be not able to meet demand with the units they can produce.
However, while Richard believes that shipments could drop by 5 to 10 million units because of the shortage, the supply problem is likely to spill over into Q1 2012 and affect 10 to 20 million units. In Q1, the expected shortage may be between 60 to 80 million units as lack of supply in Q4 is carried over into the new year.
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This would be the start of the death of the spinning HDD's when its price reach SSD-like.
Hard drive prices here have gone from $90 for a 2TB drive to $160.
Sucks. Maybe the SSD market will accelerate even faster now like darth mentioned.
I have 6 hard drives at my house, 2 SSDs and plenty of space totaling over 4 TB so no need for any anytime soon!
Well that sucks. Maybe SSDs will drop in price? Nah, they won't. Only time will tell.
I was pissed when the harddrive I bought for $80's dropped to $65... now I'm not so pissed.
WD Cav Black drives went from 90 for a 1tb to 219! That's way more the a 100 percent!
Guess who ain't buying a drive anytime soon, this guy!
if there was a hdd maker not in tailand, they could have laughed all the way to the bank
anyone else kind of hopeing for hdds to go way WAY up in price?
i mean i was thinking of getting 2 2tb drives, and having one back up the other, but if hdds go away completely... i may have to stock up on them and than ebay.
are all hard drives 100% produced in thailand? or only parts of them? Are there any HDD's not made there that are unaffected?
I'm planning on doing a build when Ivy Bridge comes out next year, but it looks like I'm going to end up using my 8 year old 2/3 TB drive a little longer.
This shortage will drive up demand across the board for disks, so SSDs shouldn't drop at all for a while, because they will start filling the void of cheap storage without low price per gigabyte hard disks. Nobody really wins because WD and friends would have made more money with 50% more drives sold at the old prices than they will at the inflated prices.
This is going to be an interesting System Builder if hard drive prices remain around the same.
so by mid 2012 the price will come down again? i was planning to build a htpc in early 2012, but i guess waiting a few month is acceptable for me...
there is an 8yr old 2-3TB HDD?
10 to 60% That must be in the USA. Here in Canada I'm looking at a WD Caviar Black 2TB that I bought a few months back for $129, now on for $299. That's over 130%. Most 500gb drives that were 49 bucks are now $99
Correction, I just checked again and the 2TB Caviar Black is now $399. That's a 210% increase.
there is an 8yr old 2-3TB HDD?
I think he was saying 2/3 as in 750GB, would make a bit more sense imo.
As long as they get their act together by the time Ivy Bridge comes out, I don't care too much. I'll need a drive for a new machine at that point though.
WD Cav Black drives went from 90 for a 1tb to 219! That's way more the a 100 percent!
I see drives every day on newegg that are 3 times as much as they were a month ago. That's not 60%, that is 300% increase in price.
In particular, I'm talking about drives that were low end anyway, 500GB or less. The larger drives (1.5TB and up) are the wisest investment right now, although I won't be buying any until this all works out.
A 3TB drive was $200, now it is $300. That's a 50% increase, in case anyone is wondering..
:|
are all hard drives 100% produced in thailand? or only parts of them? Are there any HDD's not made there that are unaffected?
Plenty of hard drives are not produced in Thailand, but they are still effected. The ones still produced are members of a smaller supply. The only way to stop a true shortage is to increase the price, therefore all the HDD are now more expensive.
I think he was saying 2/3 as in 750GB, would make a bit more sense imo.
2/3TB = 666GB >.>
I'm also glad I decided to get the newegg combo when I bought my dvd burner it had the option to get a 500GB HDD for $35 so figured why not...better investment than wall street at this point!
Welcome to Globalization!
Went to newegg today to see how much 3TB cost at this moment. A Seagate 3TB SATA 6GB/s 7200rpm cost a staggering $430 and don't forget that $8 bucks shipping charge.
LOL it's even more expensive than a GTX 570 or HD6970!
WD used to have their HDD made in Malaysia, Some of my old WD says Made in Malaysia. (sorry for DP).
Sucks. Maybe the SSD market will accelerate even faster now like darth mentioned.
why would you figure that? you think Thailand doesn't have there hand in making SSD hard drives too? SSD will probably be in the same boat with price increases. get ready to pay over 100 bucks for a 30GB SSD drive that anyone will no doubt fill in half a day
Somebody asked if all hard drives are made in Thailand. The answer is no. Seagate hard drives are mostly made in China. Was there a flood there, too? I did not see their prices staying the same. Pretty sure they are not paying their working any more money to make hard drives.....
Well seeing as SSD prices have remained the same during the time HDDs doubled in price i think its safe to say the floods haven't affected SSD prices.
Somebody asked if all hard drives are made in Thailand. The answer is no. Seagate hard drives are mostly made in China. Was there a flood there, too? I did not see their prices staying the same. Pretty sure they are not paying their working any more money to make hard drives.....
seagate gets components from Thailand tho which is why their prices have gone up as well. Edit: and apparently they also build some in Thailand as well.
from an article on the floods :
Not a good time to build your own computer
I actually did not know about this, but I did notice the huge price hikes. This can only be good for the SSD market, maybe it will drive their prices down faster than it would otherwise. I would expect to pay significantly less money next year for larger sizes, for more people will be looking to upgrade the following year.
In the economic sense, SSDs are a substitute for hard drives. Classic micro economics says that it's only a matter of time until SSD prices go up, or slow their natural price falling as a result of the hard drive shortage.
The most interesting question is, how elastic is demand for hard drives? That will determine how crazy prices get.