HDD prices rising

I got to snag a 2.5" 1TB before they get to high or sold-out for my laptop. I want to get a 9.5mm but if I have to I'll buy a 12.5mm one.
 
mwroobel said:
Bestbuy is advertising 2TB Seagate drives for $75 delivered and they are allowing 2 per order but don't stop you from placing multiple orders for delivery/in store pickup it seems.


http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Seagate...19382&AID=10475872&skuId=9419382&CJPID=683153
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Is this a decent HD for the money or would I be better off with something like a WD Blue...with much less storage. It's for my old rig which I am rebuilding and giving to my brother. It would be the OS drive.
 
WD 1TB Caviar is $199. That is insane. I am building a new computer soon and I don't want to pay an extra $150 for a hard drive...
 
2tb Seagates are sold out in the greater Portland/OR region :(
I need 6 drives for a backup server or else I am screwed, it would blow my budget twice over... so much fail.
 
Does anyone know if SSDs are going to rise in price too? Their prices are pretty much the same right now. I was planning to build a new computer soon so I am thinking maybe I should just grab a 120gb SSD because my original plan was to just get a 60gb SSD to boot up from and get a mechanical drive to pair. Now, with the mechanical drives getting out of control, I might just grab a 120gb SSD instead to hold me until they drop their prices.
 
WiL11o6 said:
Does anyone know if SSDs are going to rise in price too? Their prices are pretty much the same right now. I was planning to build a new computer soon so I am thinking maybe I should just grab a 120gb SSD because my original plan was to just get a 60gb SSD to boot up from and get a mechanical drive to pair. Now, with the mechanical drives getting out of control, I might just grab a 120gb SSD instead to hold me until they drop their prices.
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SSD, in terms of manufacturing are not affected by this (AFAIK). Therefore, the people that make that call are deciding if they want to:

A) Increase adoption by holding or reducing prices (thus get more sales)

B) Hold or slightly reduce adoption and increase prices (thus get more profit).

A bunch of bean counters are probably actively trying to figure this out to decide which way to go. My guess is you got a few weeks before the shoe drops on SSD's.

---------

Right now for HDD they can raise the prices as much as they want because there is no NET negative, just a potential reduction in NET positive. The drives will sell eventually for a profit...just whether or not they maximize it.
 
Trepidati0n said:
SSD, in terms of manufacturing are not affected by this (AFAIK). Therefore, the people that make that call are deciding if they want to:

A) Increase adoption by holding or reducing prices (thus get more sales)

B) Hold or slightly reduce adoption and increase prices (thus get more profit).

A bunch of bean counters are probably actively trying to figure this out to decide which way to go. My guess is you got a few weeks before the shoe drops on SSD's.

---------

Right now for HDD they can raise the prices as much as they want because there is no NET negative, just a potential reduction in NET positive. The drives will sell eventually for a profit...just whether or not they maximize it.
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given the current state of economy in general, and the potential deals being made with the OEM's as we speak I am sure, I would say they will choose to lower prices to increase adoption and go for margins in volume. my thought is within a year we could see SSD's become mainstream options in Dell and HP computers and retail prices drop
 
Argentum said:
NewEgg Business currently lists the HITACHI Deskstar 0S03230 3TB 5400 RPM @ $129 (here) but NewEgg has the exact same drive for $219 (here). The item numbers in the URLs are even identical.

They are limiting to 1 per customer both ends though... for a business that's probably more of an issue than an end user.
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$129 to $209 in less than a week for Business, to $259 for Newegg consumer site.

http://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145493
 
This is fucking ridiculous... I hope my poor old WD 640GB AAKS drives can survive until the prices come back down to something at least reasonable. Jesus...
 
Blue Falcon said:
This is fucking ridiculous... I hope my poor old WD 640GB AAKS drives can survive until the prices come back down to something at least reasonable. Jesus...
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Now you know how I felt when RAM was rediculous. I've bought enough DDR3 though to last me several more iterations. :D
 
I was a little worried BB was out of stock on the 2TB Seagates, but I just got this re: my order from a couple of days back:

-------------------------------------------

The items below are on their way to the XXX Best Buy store #YYY.

But wait - don't head to the store yet. We will send you another e-mail when your purchase has arrived and is ready for pickup.

Low price guarantee
If your product is available at a lower price in the store at the time of pickup, your credit card and/or gift card will automatically be adjusted to reflect the lowest price available.

-------------------------------------------

If you need 'em, you should place an order while you can. I'd normally never get a Seagate drive, but I bought a pair so I'd at least have a backup of my data.
 
xxtraloud said:
I would like to see some statistics on the percentage of available HDD storage that is actually used by end users. Most people I know have huge HDD in their computers with more than 70% of free space. I myself had a 750GB RAID 1 that was only 35% full. I overestimated my storage consumption by a lot when I bought those drives 2 years ago. So I feel most people have no need for a 1TB drive. The users in this forum represent a small niche in the market. It seems a lot of panic and speculation.
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A hard drive is a hard drive (is a hard drive).

Building a 250GB or a 4TB drive isn't very different, and if motors are the main problem, well, every HDD has two motors (one for the head(s), one for the platter(s)).

So, the people you describe have usually one HDD per computer, and the size doesn't matter. The fact that they won't be able to buy a computer because there will be shortages of drives of any size, that matters.

As for SSDs, I see a plan C : OEMs will indeed offer more of them in their machines, businesses will switch to them more rapidly, as will do people. Demand will skyrocket, flash production will not follow as quickly (how many billions is a last gen semiconductors factory, again ? and how many years to build it ?), so prices will go up, not down.
 
I see the point about the motors being always 2 regardless of size. Also though only a small percentage of digital camera users shoots in RAW, most consumer cameras don't even offer that option. Users with 1000 DVDs ripped on their HDD can easily erase them if they have the originals. If they don't then it's most likely an illegal copy so who cares. I see there is a tendency of accumulating digital media that is not being used just to say that "I have 3TB of movies and music". Just like it was during the PS1 when it was easy to copy games and people had 300 games but only played 2 or 3.
Businesses are the ones most affected, the regular Joe will make it just fine for the next year or so. People in need of a new computer should seriously consider IF they really need a new one or not. XP can still run everything the average user needs on modest hardware.
This is just my view on it.

On another ironic note, just two weeks ago I sold two 750GB for $75. I have been trying to sell them for a year at no avail. If I only waited a few days I could have sold for much more. But it seems the used market hasn't fully caught up with the price increase.
 
SSDs look cheap now. I hope prices drop "soon"; need to help build a computer for a friend in the near future.
 
Less than 1 week ago I bought 2 Hitachi 3TB 5K3000 drives for $129/ea. Now they are $220 at the same store.
 
Well, right now amazon sells Hitachi 3TB 7200RPM SATA III for $179 (show s in stock). This is weird as it was $229 yesterday. Maybe I should post it in Hot Deals section? :p
 
So yesterday I thought I purchased a 1.5TB WD Green. Price was $129 or $159. Today I realize the order didn't go through and the price is $179!

Did manage to pickup two of the $75 2TB at best buy and ordered 2 more today.
 
I've been trolling my local CL for drives, picked up a couple 2TB EARS Greens for $80 a piece brand new yesterday. I almost felt like a thief. Also picked up an HP StorageWorks LTO3 backup box for $400, realized as I was carrying it out that the 4 750GB enterprise drives in it were worth at least that.
 
Snagged a 1 TB Seagate 7200 RPM Barracuda at Best Buy for 67 bucks. Not what I intended, but shame on me for waiting two weeks, otherwise I would have ordered that 1 platter 1 TB Hitachi for 49...
 
In Switzerland: last drive I got was a 2TB WD EARX for 79 CHF (£55/$89) at the end of August. Same drive now is 164 CHF (£115/$185). :0

Thankfully today I found an electrical shop (InterDiscount) selling external LaCie 2TB drives "Designed by Neil" for 89 CHF (£62/$100) - presumably just due to being slow to react to the value change. Snapped one up, cracked it open and inside is a shiny new Seagate Barracuda Green (ST2000DL001-9VT156) :D

I dunno who the hell "Neil" is, but THANKS! ;) I think I'll go back there tonight and snap some more up while I still can..
 
I was just thinking of buying a 1TB hard drive and seeing if I could get one for $40-$45, and then I check Newegg and the cheapest, crappiest one they have is $130.

I really hope this levels off soon and the companies don't think, "Hey, let's just leave the prices really high like they did with gas after Hurricane Katrina. Nobody will notice."

Thankfully I bought a 1.5TB drive about three months ago that still has a full TB of data free, so I'll just use that for now.

That, or I'll have to start putting all my video projects into 20-part 7zip files spread across 20 DVDS :eek:

I never can have too many backup drives, but if the prices remain at 2007 levels, it looks like I've had enough after all.

xxtraloud said:
I would like to see some statistics on the percentage of available HDD storage that is actually used by end users. Most people I know have huge HDD in their computers with more than 70% of free space. I myself had a 750GB RAID 1 that was only 35% full. I overestimated my storage consumption by a lot when I bought those drives 2 years ago. So I feel most people have no need for a 1TB drive. The users in this forum represent a small niche in the market. It seems a lot of panic and speculation.
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Feel free to give me your hard drive if you don't need it. Weekly HD video editing projects wouldn't exactly be easy on my old 160GB EIDE drive.
 
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Just picked up another 3 drives. Was hard not to at that price, really.
 
I had a 2tb Samsung I ordered at $90 from PC Connection about 2 weeks ago - knew it was a backorder. They just sent me a note cancelling the order.
 
xxtraloud said:
I would like to see some statistics on the percentage of available HDD storage that is actually used by end users. Most people I know have huge HDD in their computers with more than 70% of free space. I myself had a 750GB RAID 1 that was only 35% full. I overestimated my storage consumption by a lot when I bought those drives 2 years ago. So I feel most people have no need for a 1TB drive. The users in this forum represent a small niche in the market. It seems a lot of panic and speculation.
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I recently growed my raid array, so I'm good for a while. :D

Code: 
[root@borg ~]# df -hl
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3             433G   11G  400G   3% /
/dev/sda1             190M   25M  156M  14% /boot
tmpfs                 3.8G   48K  3.8G   1% /dev/shm
/dev/md0              4.5T  2.3T  2.0T  54% /raid1
[root@borg ~]#

I still need to go through everything I've downloaded in the past month or so to sort out the goods and bads, and I will probably knock off like 50GB of duplicates and what not.

I also have a full backup of my entire environment on my SAN. I may not have 10TB, but I got plenty of space to go around. :p

It's crazy to think that 10 years ago a 40GB drive was considered fairly big. We tend to be packrats just because we have the space now.
 
Unabomber said:
Snagged a 1 TB Seagate 7200 RPM Barracuda at Best Buy for 67 bucks. Not what I intended, but shame on me for waiting two weeks, otherwise I would have ordered that 1 platter 1 TB Hitachi for 49...
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I snagged three, one from one store, two from another (the first only had one drive). Since they're retail-boxed, they have a five year warranty, unlike the same OEM model on the `Egg (2 years), which is currently retailing at $139.99

There were three more left at the second location, I was tempted to buy them out, knowing that prices might be high until Q2 of 2012. I still might do that tomorrow, I have a lot of people who come to me for work on their systems.

BB had tons of the 500GB model for $60 (being sold for $109.99 online) but the 1TB model is a way better deal for less than seven bucks more. I also admit to liking WD more, but the prices are currently so much poorer for Western Digital, especially on Caviar Blacks, that it just isn't cost-effective.

I also was going to drop the thought of buying a used server for work and go with a NAS --then prices on the Samsung F3R drives I would have used doubled. I'm now working on buying the used server again, as all its bays are filled with 1TB drives.
 
http://semiaccurate.com/2011/11/03/western-digital-and-samsung-suspend-disk-drive-shipments/

According to sources that we have spoken with in the Taiwanese market both Samsung and Western Digital have decided to suspend shipments of disk drives to PC makers in Taiwan due to a parts shortage.

Both Samsung and Western Digital are sourcing parts such as head stacks and drive motors from suppliers in Thailand and because of the torrential rain that supply has been disrupted. Also, both companies are restricting supplies to the retailers in order to avoid having PC manufacturers begin obtaining their drives that way. Microcenter, based in the US, has already taken limiting steps as seen by their in store signs.

The supply shortage is also expected to impact the DIY market, which in turn will also hurt processor and motherboard manufacturers. The shortage also represents a chance for the SSD guys to take a part of the market, if only they can get the pricing right.
 
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I can't believe Newegg..... $289 + Shipping for an OEM 5K3000 3TB, and $399 + Shipping for an OEM 7K3000 3TB.

B & H Still has the retail boxed 5K3000 2TB for $119 delivered, and the 3TB for $169 delivered and there doesn't seem to be a limit.
 
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mwroobel said:
I can't believe Newegg..... $289 + Shipping for an OEM 5K3000 3TB, and $399 + Shipping for an OEM 7K3000 3TB.

B & H Still has the retail boxed 5K3000 2TB for $119 delivered, and the 3TB for $169 delivered and there doesn't seem to be a limit.
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Good find.
 
mwroobel said:
I can't believe Newegg..... $289 + Shipping for an OEM 5K3000 3TB, and $399 + Shipping for an OEM 7K3000 3TB.

B & H Still has the retail boxed 5K3000 2TB for $119 delivered, and the 3TB for $169 delivered and there doesn't seem to be a limit.
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I'm receiving 3 limit on the 2TB drive.
 
B & H seems to limit you to 3 drives when you go to add them to your cart (check the Hitachi 3TB drive) although nothing is said on the product page. I don't know where I can find the large number of drives that I need.
 
grogthegreat said:
B & H seems to limit you to 3 drives when you go to add them to your cart (check the Hitachi 3TB drive) although nothing is said on the product page. I don't know where I can find the large number of drives that I need.
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create multiple orders. Ship 3 to your office, your home, your wife, your girlfriend, your dog.
 
Those new 1tb platters deliver some amazing performance... A shame they appear now that the HDD situation is so dire, their price is just insane and I'd rather get a SSD for that price, even though it'd be much smaller.
 
If anything, this has gotten me to go through my server and examine just what I've been keeping on there. I've managed to delete close to 300 gigs of stuff that I had used but have no intention of touching again. Amazing when you have several TB's of storage available how easy it is to get lazy with it.
 
Anybody else kinda worried about this? Was reading in Maximum PC that things are expected to get worse in Q1 next year!

I was gonna build the wife a new rig here in the next month or so but now Im thinking if Im gonna have to spend $100+ for a hard drive for her, I might as well give her my 320GB drive and get a SSD for myself.

I wonder how this will affect the OEM's once supplies run pretty much dry.
 
I am personally good for a while, though it still makes me a bit nervous knowing that whatever drives I have here, are basically, all I got. I'm almost tempted to buy some more but at those prices, and "just in case" seems silly. But will I kick myself in a few months from now if by chance I get like 4 failures? Tough decision.

I just hope it does not take too long for it to go back to normal. Like with oil, it never really does go back to normal, the prices go up, and never come back down to what they were. I hope this wont be the case here.
 
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