Hard Drive Pricing going up at an alarming rate!!!!

I've resorted to taking my hard drive out of my laptop to use for now rather than buying a new hard drive at the ridiculous prices that are around now!
 
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So glad I ordered 6x2tb 2 weeks ago now.

Mediaserver is now stuffed to the gills with drives again. Should give me another 6 months or so of space.
 
Starting to wonder what HDD's are in cheap 1/1.5TB external storage on the high-street and whether they're SATA compatible. There's plenty of places which haven't yet increased the pricing on external storage to reflect the new market realities, so worth looking at in a pinch.
 
Hmm, checked to see how this had affected pricing in a certain system builder...

1.5 TB included in price
2 TB add £200
2 x 2TB add £490

:eek:
 
MattU said:
Hmm, checked to see how this had affected pricing in a certain system builder...

1.5 TB included in price
2 TB add £200
2 x 2TB add £490

:eek:
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:eek: Holy **** ! lol I bought myself 2 x 2TB HDD's a couple weeks back paid which were about 50quid each. Really glad I bought them when I did. About to build my new SB system with WC (well will start it next weekend) and I wanted some new sata3 storage devices.
 
I can understand if new stock have higher prices but to wack up the prices on current stuck so much is just wrong. Does it not mean that Ocuk make a huge profit on current stock?
 
No, because they have to rebuy at the more expensive stock prices. They will potentially make a loss when distributor prices come back down, as they'll have to stay competitive but will have paid higher prices for the drives at that point.

Kinda works out both ways if that makes sense.
 
Stripes said:
Starting to wonder what HDD's are in cheap 1/1.5TB external storage on the high-street and whether they're SATA compatible. There's plenty of places which haven't yet increased the pricing on external storage to reflect the new market realities, so worth looking at in a pinch.
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I got the last 2 toshiba 2TB usb drives for £59.99 each earlier this week from the euronics electrical shop I work at :D. Inside they are seagate, this model in fact:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-244-SE&groupid=1657&catid=1660&subcat=1954
 
Trofeo said:
I got the last 2 toshiba 2TB usb drives for £59.99 each earlier this week from the euronics electrical shop I work at :D. Inside they are seagate, this model in fact:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-244-SE&groupid=1657&catid=1660&subcat=1954
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I've noticed external drives have not increased in price nearly as much as internal drives. Do you reckon you could make a profit by buying up some external drives, removing the drive from inside and then selling them on?

Edit: Obviously this would void the warranty though, which would presumably affect the resale value.
 
Jaffar said:
I've noticed external drives have not increased in price nearly as much as internal drives. Do you reckon you could make a profit by buying up some external drives, removing the drive from inside and then selling them on?

Edit: Obviously this would void the warranty though, which would presumably affect the resale value.
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Externals will start heading up once people need to restock..
 
Ultimately, somewhere in the supply chain there is someone putting a huge profit margin on hard drives, which is of course passed on to us.

It's either the distributor that OverClockers buys from, or Overclockers themselves.

Don't let anyone convince you that the kind of prices retailers are currently selling for are at all reflective of the actual state of availability.

Read the statements provided by the CEO's or Western Digital, Seagate, hell - whoever you want. They unanimously state that availability will not be compromised in Q4 2011. It may be compromised in Q1 2012 - if the situation deteriorates and the factories are unable to resume operations before the end of the year.

However, numerous alternative plants are increasing production - and at the moment are compensating for any reduction of production in Thailand.

Please note I am not saying that OcUK are ripping anyone off. It's more than likely OcUK are the ones being primarily ripped off, and they have no choice but to pass the costs onto us, which is entirely reasonable of course.
 
Jaffar said:
I've noticed external drives have not increased in price nearly as much as internal drives. Do you reckon you could make a profit by buying up some external drives, removing the drive from inside and then selling them on?
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For sure. Externals are lower priced right now because they're not an essential item - you don't need one to build a PC, plus they're often sold by high street shops that are slow to react to price changes. But as stocks of internals dry up the price of externals will shoot up as people buy them to strip out the drives. I'd expect externals to become hard to get over the next couple of months as current stock runs out, because all the bare drives will go to the big OEMs.

I bought a bunch of 1TB externals from a high street shop for £59.99 each (effectively less since they gave me some gift cards too) and confidently expect to make money re-selling them nearer Christmas.

RabbitHutch said:
Read the statements provided by the CEO's or Western Digital, Seagate, hell - whoever you want. They unanimously state that availability will not be compromised in Q4 2011. It may be compromised in Q1 2012 - if the situation deteriorates and the factories are unable to resume operations before the end of the year.
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The HD plants in Thailand are going to be out of commission for many, many months. Once the flood waters recede (which may take weeks) there's a lot of work to be done. The buildings need to be checked for structural damage and repaired if necessary. Power needs to be restored, which may be difficult given the extreme infrastructure damage in the flooded areas. The clean-room areas where actual production takes place will have to be basically re-built. And then new production machinery has to be procured. the lead time of such equipment is measured in months at the best of times.

There's some scope for plants elsewhere to increase production, but that's going to be limited by shortages of components since many of the suppliers of those have facilities in Thailand (most notably NIDEC, who are the major supplier of hard drive motors). WD's boss used the phrase 'considerably constrained' regarding component supply and said the HD industry faces 'unprecedented obstacles'. CEOs don't say things like that unless the fan is slinging brown stuff in all directions.

The current situation is down purely to panic buying and speculation, but that's being driven by anticipation of the real shortage hitting in the near future, which it certainly will do. This one is going to get much worse before it gets any better.
 
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I bought a bunch of 1TB externals from a high street shop for £59.99 each (effectively less since they gave me some gift cards too) and confidently expect to make money re-selling them nearer Christmas.
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Do you plan to remove the drives from the casing or just sell them as they are?
 
Mega "ouch" to some of these prices. Luckily my current storage is doing me fine for now. Will have to postpone the purchase of the 3 2TB drives I was going to buy until prices settle down. £127.99 for the Samsung F4... ouch.
 
DrBombcrater said:
The HD plants in Thailand are going to be out of commission for many, many months. Once the flood waters recede (which may take weeks) there's a lot of work to be done. The buildings need to be checked for structural damage and repaired if necessary. Power needs to be restored, which may be difficult given the extreme infrastructure damage in the flooded areas. The clean-room areas where actual production takes place will have to be basically re-built. And then new production machinery has to be procured. the lead time of such equipment is measured in months at the best of times.

There's some scope for plants elsewhere to increase production, but that's going to be limited by shortages of components since many of the suppliers of those have facilities in Thailand (most notably NIDEC, who are the major supplier of hard drive motors). WD's boss used the phrase 'considerably constrained' regarding component supply and said the HD industry faces 'unprecedented obstacles'. CEOs don't say things like that unless the fan is slinging brown stuff in all directions.

The current situation is down purely to panic buying and speculation, but that's being driven by anticipation of the real shortage hitting in the near future, which it certainly will do. This one is going to get much worse before it gets any better.
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Below is a list of Nidec's production plants. The ones in bold are in Thailand. The one in green and in bold is in Thailand, but is in production.

NIDEC ELECTRONICS (THAILAND) CO., LTD. RANGSIT FACTORY
BANGKADI FACTORY
ROJANA FACTORY
NIDEC PRECISION (THAILAND) CO., LTD. AYUTTHAYA FACTORY
NIDEC BEARING (THAILAND) CO., LTD.
NIDEC (ZHEJIANG) CORPORATION
NIDEC (DALIAN) LIMITED
NIDEC AUTOMOBILE MOTOR (ZHEJIANG) CORPORATION
NIDEC (DONGGUAN) LIMITED
NIDEC (SHAOGUAN) LIMITED
P.T. NIDEC INDONESIA
NIDEC PHILIPPINES CORPORATION
NIDEC PRECISION PHILIPPINES CORPORATION
NIDEC SUBIC PHILIPPINES CORPORATION
NIDEC VIETNAM CORPORATION
NIDEC COPAL (VIETNAM) CO., LTD.
NIDEC NISSIN VIETNAM CORPORATION
NIDEC TOSOK (VIETNAM) CO., LTD.
NIDEC COPAL PHILIPPINES CORPORATION
NIDEC SHIBAURA (ZHEJIANG) CO.,LTD.
NIDEC COPAL (MALAYSIA) SDN. BHD.

I'm sorry, but your discussion bears no relevance to reality. Capacity has already been increased at Nidec's other plants.

The Hutchinson group have already increased production at their US plants.

Hitachi and GST are unaffected.

Ultimately, given that 25% of hard drive production is located in Thailand, in basic terms there could be a 25% in availability - (in end construction alone at least). However, this figure assumes that;

- There is no increase in capacity whatsoever at any other plant
- Every single plant in Thailand completely ceases production (Hitachi and GST havn't even been affected whatsoever)

And that accounts for hard drive prices tripling in some instances over the last week or two?

Please......

Just read the recent statements from the NIDEC board, WD board etc etc.
 
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