Price rises inbound?

iviv · 18 Oct 2011 at 20:31

http://www.infoworld.com/t/hard-dri...rive-shortage-and-possible-price-hikes-176453

If you're going to need hard drives this year or early next year, it would be smart to get your sources locked in now.

Disk manufacturing sites in Thailand -- notably including the largest Western Digital plant -- were shut down due to floods around Bangkok last week and are expected to remain shut for at least several more days. The end to flooding is not in sight, and Western Digital now says it could take five to eight months to bring its plants back online. Thailand is a major manufacturer of hard drives, and the shutdowns have reduced the industry's output by 25 percent.

Western Digital, the largest hard disk manufacturer, makes more than 30 percent of all hard drives in the world. Its plants in Ayutthaya's Bang Pa-In Industrial Estate and Pathum Thani's Navanakorn Industrial Estate together produce about 60 percent the company's disks. Both were shut down last Wednesday. (Western Digital also has a major plant in Malaysia that hasn't been affected by the floods, so some production will likely shift to that plant.)

There's more in the article, but a sudden drop in production is going to lead to higher prices, as I doubt the alternative plants will be able to increase production enough to meet with the demand. So, get in before OcUK's price is forced to rise! Though depending on how much stock there is here, it could be some time before the knock on effects are felt.

Though as the article notes, the prices have been very level for a suprisingly long time now, so this could just be a small bump. Any word from OcUK on the matter?

gropingmantis · 18 Oct 2011 at 20:36

Thank god I just got my 2TB drive and SSD.

Speedy Pete · 18 Oct 2011 at 21:22

Last samsung HDD i got from OcUK came from america.

Surveyor · 18 Oct 2011 at 22:17

Speedy Pete said:
Last samsung HDD i got from OcUK came from america.

Do you mean it was meant for the American market (a grey import) or was it actually manufactured in America?

Speedy Pete · 18 Oct 2011 at 23:09

Ah, i suppose it was a grey import.

PCM2 · 19 Oct 2011 at 14:18

Interesting news. But for those worrying about SSD prices, don't. Companies such as Corsair, Crucial, OCZ and Intel who manufacture SSDs don't have their main manufacturing facilities in Thailand. HDD prices are another matter.