HDD prices rising

Not sure how common it is, but the last few 1.5Tb WD Elements external drives I've bought from Target have had Caviar Black drives in them (WD1503FAEX) for $79.99.
They also have the 2Tb Elements, the last one I bought had a EARX in it. Those were at $89.99. Shelf was full of both. Have absolutely no clue how to tell which drive is in which box, but over the past few weeks I've gotten 4 of the 1.5TB's and all have been the Black. Good price for a fast drive in todays climate.
 
First few WD Scorpio images on google say "Product of Thailand", so they are probably very affected.
 
Nocturnal said:
Can someone confirm for me that 2.5" drives are just as affected as 3.5" drives? I swear every article I read has some notation about laptops and netbooks being affected just as bad. People are saying that the 2.5" drives should not be effected. Of course they can't cite their reference but claim they're looking for it somewhere.
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From a Register article:

Major disk drive motor supplier Nidec has resumed production at several facilities in Thailand, but continues to deal with damage to six sites that are still under water.

Even with increased production at other factories they'll be down to about a third of usual.

They make 75% of the motors used in HDDs and while it doesn't specify hdd dimensions i'd bet it affected 2.5" drives too.
 
Nocturnal said:
Can someone confirm for me that 2.5" drives are just as affected as 3.5" drives? I swear every article I read has some notation about laptops and netbooks being affected just as bad. People are saying that the 2.5" drives should not be effected. Of course they can't cite their reference but claim they're looking for it somewhere.
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my laptop drive went from 79 to 99 then 159

Also asus does not make desktop pc they make laptops and components and they are saying they are going to run out of hard drives... When they said this they meant laptop drives only as asus would have little use for 3.5" drives...

Also why should 2.5" hard drives not be affected by this they are made in the same factory as the 3.5" drives and probably in the same room as them.
 
Bought a couple of 2tb drives off Amazon last night for £80 each, they were limiting it to one per customer (got my girlfriend to order one). The same drives are £115 this morning.

That should last me about a year. I'm just worried what I'd do if one of my hard drives fails? I have all my files duplicated across a couple of machines, but its a system centred around the idea that I could replace a hard drive in a couple of days without hurting my wallet too much. Now I'm a bit more worried.
 
Expect to see the prices rise even further on hard drives... Most factories that mfg hard drives are located in Thailand so after the flood a while back, we should expect to see hard drives spiral upwards in price during this Christmas season...
 
If any are being sold for cheap during black friday, that would be the time to buy if your in the market
 
And everything I said has already been written on previous pages... My bad lol
 
I guess I'll ask something in this thread since it's related to the rising prices of hard drives, so here it goes:

I'm interested in getting the WD VelociRaptor 300GB 3Gbps hard drive, and the retail version of the hard drive is selling for $179.99. I'm wondering if this is still a decent price compared to the OEM version which seems to be much higher everywhere I look. I was also curious if this price is around the old prices before all this Thailand stuff happened. I kind of need the hard drive(s) as I'm currently stuck on a single 75giger :(
 
//[T.0.P]//;1037995931 said:
I guess I'll ask something in this thread since it's related to the rising prices of hard drives, so here it goes:

I'm interested in getting the WD VelociRaptor 300GB 3Gbps hard drive, and the retail version of the hard drive is selling for $179.99. I'm wondering if this is still a decent price compared to the OEM version which seems to be much higher everywhere I look. I was also curious if this price is around the old prices before all this Thailand stuff happened. I kind of need the hard drive(s) as I'm currently stuck on a single 75giger :(
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It is really hard to make a case for the VelociRaptor now - regular 7200rpm drives can easily exceed the VR's sequential read/write speeds, and SSDs destroy their random performance.
 
The real question, price and availability aside, what’s the quality going to be when they go back into production, and they employ alternative parts sources for motors…
 
lippy2day said:
The real question, price and availability aside, what’s the quality going to be when they go back into production, and they employ alternative parts sources for motors…
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That is a great point and something that I hadn't thought about. The main indicator for me will be if they try to sneak a warranty change. Most drives are down to 3 years from 5 so if I start to see 2 year warranties than we will have our answer.
 
lippy2day said:
The real question, price and availability aside, what’s the quality going to be when they go back into production, and they employ alternative parts sources for motors…
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oh ive already been thinking about that.....that in a year from now we could be referring to drives as "pre-taiwan" models....referring to models manufactured back when drives were still fairly reliable. I am thinking we are going to see the SSD rise much faster as a result. There may very well be a much smaller market for spinning disc drives by the time this is over.
 
anyone else stocking up? I've got about 120TB from the last week or so
haven't had to pay more than $50/TB yet except for my 7K1000.D drives that were $65 each
 
EnderW said:
anyone else stocking up? I've got about 120TB from the last week or so
haven't had to pay more than $50/TB yet except for my 7K1000.D drives that were $65 each
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Damn only 18TB here but ya I'm stocking up as much as I need to.

What do you need 120TB for?
 
//[T.0.P]//;1037995931 said:
I guess I'll ask something in this thread since it's related to the rising prices of hard drives, so here it goes:

I'm interested in getting the WD VelociRaptor 300GB 3Gbps hard drive, and the retail version of the hard drive is selling for $179.99. I'm wondering if this is still a decent price compared to the OEM version which seems to be much higher everywhere I look. I was also curious if this price is around the old prices before all this Thailand stuff happened. I kind of need the hard drive(s) as I'm currently stuck on a single 75giger :(
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If you are planning on using the vraptors for sql or other use where high IOPS are desireable, then by all means due so. but as just a general OS use, they are not near as relevant as they used to be and you would be better served by something like the new seagate 7200RPM 3TB 1TB/platter drives.
 
mwroobel said:
If you are planning on using the vraptors for sql or other use where high IOPS are desireable, then by all means due so. but as just a general OS use, they are not near as relevant as they used to be and you would be better served by something like the new seagate 7200RPM 3TB 1TB/platter drives.
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Hum, I'm pretty sure the Raptors are still very relevant for an OS drive due do their responsiveness. But if by "general OS use" you meant using them for more than just the OS then you might be right depending on the actual use of the drive.

The 1Tb platters are absolutely amazing though, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to resist when I will see a cheap drive using one (not anytime soon I imagine)
 
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EnderW said:
anyone else stocking up? I've got about 120TB from the last week or so
haven't had to pay more than $50/TB yet except for my 7K1000.D drives that were $65 each
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True here. All the drives I picked up about 2 weeks ago comes was just over $41/TB. Higher then I got in quantity tho. I ended up with just a tad under 120TB worth this time.
 
kalston said:
Hum, I'm pretty sure the Raptors are still very relevant for an OS drive due do their responsiveness. But if by "general OS use" you meant using them for more than just the OS then you might be right depending on the actual use of the drive.

The 1Tb platters are absolutely amazing though, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to resist when I will see a cheap drive using one (not anytime soon I imagine)
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IMO SSD is currently much better option than Raptor.

 
mwroobel said:
If you are planning on using the vraptors for sql or other use where high IOPS are desireable, then by all means due so. but as just a general OS use, they are not near as relevant as they used to be and you would be better served by something like the new seagate 7200RPM 3TB 1TB/platter drives.
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kalston said:
Hum, I'm pretty sure the Raptors are still very relevant for an OS drive due do their responsiveness. But if by "general OS use" you meant using them for more than just the OS then you might be right depending on the actual use of the drive.

The 1Tb platters are absolutely amazing though, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to resist when I will see a cheap drive using one (not anytime soon I imagine)
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Yes, the vraptors would definitely be a raid 0 OS drive, and if possible have another for a storage/page file on my XP machine.I'm sticking with XP for various reasons, one being that trying to stick to a platform that is friendly to more of the older games (1997-2006). So basically I'll be gaming, bit trafficing, some very mild scripting, and archiving my CD collection(Oh I plan on using a TB drive for the archiving BTW). My specs are a little outdated but I'm trying to stick to the build I have listed in my sig, or at least trying to top out what the A8N32-SLI can do(Hence, the vraptor 3gbps).
 
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Nidec manufactures stuff for all sizes of drives, and that stuff includes motors but also casings :

product_photo01.jpg
 
Tak Ne said:
From that story...

Worldwide total Q4 hard drive production is expected to be about 120 million units, down from 176 million in Q3.

That makes it sound like its not that big a problem.
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Really not that big ? When the big computer manufacturers used up nearly 92m from that 176m in Q3 ? Add to that the small computer manufacturers, and you have nothing for retail.
 
Tak Ne said:
From that story...

Worldwide total Q4 hard drive production is expected to be about 120 million units, down from 176 million in Q3.

That makes it sound like its not that big a problem.
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I'm not sure you understand macro ecnomics then. On the macro level, a few % change can have serious and massive results. Throw in speculators on top of it and oh shit.

Put it this way, based on your logic..there really is no difference between 5% and 9% unemployment. I mean it is only 4%. ;)
 
The parts that will be sold in Q4 drives could have been produced in Q3 or earlier and sitting in inventory somewhere. Q1 is going to be more interesting after the buffer in the part supply chain is further depleted.
 
I didn't say it wasn't a problem, just that it doesn't sound as bad as some stories made it.
 
Tak Ne said:
I didn't say it wasn't a problem, just that it doesn't sound as bad as some stories made it.
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110-120m instead of 170-180m were the numbers from the start, so i don't know what are you talking about (i posted exactly the same numbers 2 weeks ago): And 120m instead of 170-180m is bad, really bad, as it doesn't even cover all computer manufacturer needs if we include small computer manufacturers. And that is the reason why do you see increased price and limit 1 hard drive per order - because the supply for retail will be erratic at best.
 
35% isn't as high as some of the numbers I've seen quoted. It means that there will be hard drives available if you know where to look and are willing to pay extra.
 
fields_g said:
The parts that will be sold in Q4 drives could have been produced in Q3 or earlier and sitting in inventory somewhere. Q1 is going to be more interesting after the buffer in the part supply chain is further depleted.
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No supplier has millions of parts in inventory to sell for the next quarter or two.
 
Tak Ne said:
35% isn't as high as some of the numbers I've seen quoted. It means that there will be hard drives available if you know where to look and are willing to pay extra.
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Don't know what numbers you seen, i seen numbers around ~40% since the whole thing started.
 
Rebel44 said:
IMO SSD is currently much better option than Raptor.

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No one was talking about SSDs there, their very high price per GB and insane performance puts them in a different league.
I guess that he was talking about Raptors because he knew he could use the storage capacity that they have to offer.
 
It really seems that in some cases USB external HDDs are cheaper than ordinary ones. Does anyone know where to get info what kind of HDDs are in external USB HDD? Something like a table? I'm especially interested in Hitachi USB HDDs like Hitachi Touro Desk 2TB?
 
danman said:
No supplier has millions of parts in inventory to sell for the next quarter or two.
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But the floods didn't start first day of Q4. And on the first day of the floods, there were already millions of drives in boats and planes and trucks.
 
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