The great HD rip off

MikeHunt79 said:
Saying that, if you think they are too expensive then vote with your wallet and just don't buy any hard drives until the price has come down to what you see as reasonable.
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LOL

How people going do that when you need harddrives to build a system..
Or there harddrive has failed and they need one to replace it
Or like myself there people totally out of space and need a new bigger harddrive badly..


Even if the price of the cheapest harddrives started at £500 people would still buy them as there a needed Component ;) (unless they buy an SSD :D )
It like petrol most people will buy whatever the price
 
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Yamahahahahaha said:
Firstly, the massive devaluation in the UK pound over the past few years would account for a large part of that increase (Making importing the raw ingredients and components expensive). The remaining amount is probably because the cost of production has gone up, plus inflation. The joys of recession.


True, but their component manufacturers did. Especially NIDEC, who produce most of the hard drive motors for the world.
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what massive devaluation?
 
I was lucky in that I bought a Samsung F3 500 for > 30 just before the floods. I would have probably bought another two by now but will wait until the prices drop to a more realistic level again.
I have a funny feeling that we will never see such cheap prices again though...
 
Maybe slightly off topic, but I RMA'ed a Samsung Spinpoint 1TB F3 (HD103SJ) back at the beginning of December when Seagate were taking over RMA support of Samsung HDD's, Rexo received it on 13th December 2011, Seagate then received it from Rexo on 21st December and even after 3 phone calls I am still waiting on my 1TB replacement HDD...

Hopefully my last phonecall to Seagate will bear fruit and I'll receive my repalcement next week...

Seagate's support is absolutely woeful!
 
jbloggs said:
Seagate's support is absolutely woeful!
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Perhaps it's because you RMA'ed at a bad time? Transferring over all those warranties and information over probably isn't easy and will slow them down.

Samsung RMA's with rexo have been real quick for me.
Seagate too, within a week I got a replacement drive after they received the faulty one.
 
halohippe said:
what massive devaluation?
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People on this forum often refer to the temporary 2007/2008 £2/$ ratio as normal, instead of as a short term swing in our purchasing power favour. The drop after our interest rates went from higher than average to notably below did have a significant affect on computer hardware prices in this country.
 
sooooo, any ideas on when we can expect theyre prices to come down, as im thinking of building a cheap rig at the end of this month.
 
HDD prices will probably won't return to pre-flood prices until the next big shift in data/square inch technology, by which time SSDs should be far more attractive..
 
Guest2 said:
Where possible I would always use Western Digital. Its a real shame they dont sell SSDs

I had a Seagate years ago and the customer service was poor
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I've just returned a Seagate and the "Certified Replacement" is worse than the one I sent back!! Less than happy and so Seagate are bottom of the list when I'm looking at drives now.
 
3GB?:eek:

:p

So would it be better to just get a 60GB SSD than a 500GB HDD, theyre both roughly the same price or is it worth getting a very slow/old second hand HDD?
 
Paul11 said:
how is it a rip off, its just basic supply and demand
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I can’t resist bringing this up…

“Law of Supply and Demand”

A friend of mine once asked a professor of health economics Why “things” go up in price when there is more demand…it’s because of the “Law of Supply and Demand” but why is that, ultimately the professor had no answer, it’s not a “Law” in the sense everyone seems to think it is, I think the relationship does work in one direction but it depends on human greed being a constant: if three people want to buy my house rather than one I can probably get more money for it.. However, I think, because we have never really lived through a modern depression, we have forgotten about the other direction – when demand falls off and there is plenty of supply, if that was a science graph (Law) then the products should fall in price until the system started working again, why haven’t house prices corrected significantly from peak 2007 when there is less than half the demand?

Simply stated companies charge more because they can (no reason), it’s just corporate profiteering and greed, not some magical “Law of Supply and Demand”.

To get back on point (sorry to go on), if Seagate's earnings have increased by 18.5%, and the company's profitability has rose 375% we are being ripped off. Why ordinary people defend this jump in profit (rip off) is beyond me…
 
That professor should find a new job, not being about to answer that.

House prices are a bad example as there's more aspects to it other than supply and demand. Most people selling house aren't businesses for a start so don't have to sell to make a living, and there are other issues like negative equity.

Seagate can charge what it likes, the market dictates what prices it will pay, if Seagate charge too much they won't sell any. As there is more demand than product they can charge more and people will pay.

If there was over production the price would drop as the competiton would try to undercut each other to gain market share.

Seagate did very well out of this, as more of their production was unaffected.
 
You are right "Seagate can charge what it likes" and that's leading to us all being ripped off, due to a lack of competiton.

"The market dictates what prices it will pay" we can charge more so we will, is that the Law?
 
In September 2011 I bought six 2TB Samsung HDD HD204UI for £50 each, now priced from £100-£110 for a mini-server project build on a budget but unsure of what price they reached.

I then needed to purchase a couple 2TB WD Caviar Black's and bought these mid-October 2011 for £110 each - OcUK don't sell them now but elsewhere they sell from £160-£200 each. I still have one of C.B. sealed and it did cross my mind to sell it when it reached £260 but that's not fair in light of the tragedy.

As mechanical drive prices will be high into late 2012, and not seeing the new facilities coming into full production, it does make you appreciate a little how great the choice and capacities were before.
 
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