The impending hard drive shortage -- and possible price hikes

[WeeboTech]

BUY HERE

 

Insufficient Stock  

[JackBauer]

Prognostication come true? (Look at 2nd paragraph)

 

I have two 3TB's I bought at $129...  Just waiting for a 5.0 release candidate.  (These beta's just have too many issues for me to trust right now)

 

I bought them knowing essentially the 2TB would "cost me more" in the long run.  I'd start buying 4TB's at a bigger premium now if I could.

[eph85]

NewEgg is now selling WD20EARS for $250.  That's a little more than 4 times what I last paid for them on sale ($60).

[WeeboTech]

It's also the price that NEW drives to market start out at. 

I think a serious concern would be if they go much higher then that.

[Johnm]

i think they are slightly inflating drive prices right now on sites like new egg.

 

either they are low on stock and done want to run out completely, or they want the black friday sales to look awesome when they put them on sale for $125 (not that most e-tailers have advertised a hard drive sale since this started).

[opentoe]

By the time hard drives are affordable again there most likely will be 4TB models out by then. What if unraid (stable) is still stuck at 2TB size? Looks like that is where it is headed.

[JackBauer]

By the time hard drives are affordable again there most likely will be 4TB models out by then. What if unraid (stable) is still stuck at 2TB size? Looks like that is where it is headed.

 

Well that is possible - these beta's are fixing bugs and introducing other ones (or so it seems).

 

It does seem to be improving though - it is very apparent Tom is working hard on it.  A good many of the bugs seem to originate in the kernel - or updated device drivers that are part of the kernel?

 

 

[prostuff1]

A good many of the bugs seem to originate in the kernel - or updated device drivers that are part of the kernel?

That is correct.  Most of these issues are related to the drivers that are a part of the kernel which Tom has almost no control over.  He can report the problems and give as much detail to the kernel devs but that is about the extent of it.

[intertan]

so this shortage/price thing could last up to a year if not longer. Other news I have read say they may run out of drives by the end of the month.

glad I got some extra storage before the flood hit. Wonder if ssd drive market is gona lower the cost to get people to buy it?

[johnm160]

so this shortage/price thing could last up to a year if not longer. Other news I have read say they may run out of drives by the end of the month.

glad I got some extra storage before the flood hit. Wonder if ssd drive market is gona lower the cost to get people to buy it?

 

They won't have to drop prices on SSD, they will be cheaper then hard drives...LOL

 

As they start to ramp up supply and demand drops way down because consumers are not buying anywhere near as many drives at these prices, things will correct. OEM's are really the only ones going to be buying drives at these prices. Wonder how the price increase is going to affect the holiday demand for new PC's

[WeeboTech]

I read an article that said the shortage has been because OEM's and PC Manufactures are being prioritized vs the end user or consumer.

 

In any case, it will stimulate change. What that change is only the future will tell.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

[grandprix]

A store that will remain nameless right now (sorry, many wouldn't be able to access it anyway most likely - just trust me on that) is selling the retail version of the WD20EARS for $99.99 -- I don't have to pay tax.

 

I bought 3 (already have a backup 2tb, but wanted to expand by 2 more drives plus have a total of 2 backups).  It wasn't the $79 we had gotten used to paying and they aren't Hitachi's (which I prefer, 6gb/s AND they seem to run 1-2 degrees cooler in my setup), but, they definitely haven't been adjusted due to the shortage yet.

 

They had 4 left (at the branch I went to) still.. contemplating it.  Some reports are saying they could come down in price as early as December.. ehhh, not sure I'd want to wait to find out tbh.

 

[kizer]

Man they are high as a kite right now

[squirrellydw]

They may bounce back soon

 

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/11/16/hard.drive.shortages.may.be.short.lived/

 

Hard drive shortages may be short-lived

 

 

The hard drive shortages triggered by Thai flooding might be resolved as soon as December. Resellers claimed Wednesday to Digitimes that they hadn't seen as much scarcity as expected and even had an oversupply. They reportedly plan to drop prices next month to clear out stock.

 

A recovery in key hard drive part supplier Nidec's production plants may have been key. An "obvious" improvement in supply should appear by January or February, the resellers said.

 

Sluggish PC sales may ironically help the hard drive business by cutting back on demand for the storage. A poor economy has been a common factor, although Apple's iPad has helped drain sales away from netbooks and budget notebooks, most of all from big but budget-focused PC builders like Acer.

 

While not confirmed on a broader level, a quicker end to the shortage could avoid some of the more dire predictions. Researchers at IDC warned that the Thailand flooding could plunge PC sales by 20 percent as even larger companies might not have enough finished PCs to ship.

 

 

[sacretagent]

for those interested 

 

how to pry open a external WD mybook

 

http://www.instructables.com/id/Disassembling-a-Western-Digital-My-Book/#step1

[me=sacretagent]just used it succesfully  [/me]

only a 500gb drive but hey i was running on fumes

[bubbaQ]

Seagate says it will stop production of all green drives in February 2012.

 

And then there was only one......

 

 

http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_kills_green_hard_drives_plans_launch_barracuda_hybrid_hard_drive

[WeeboTech]

Yes, but check it out...

 

Seagate also will be migrating the Barracuda XT line to a new Barracuda Hybrid line of hard drives, implementing the caching technology seen in their wildly popular notebook hybrid hard drive, the Momentus XT.

 

as far as I see, the move towards hybrid 3.5" drives was inevitable, just as production for green drives will be.

 

I remember years ago before the green logo, drives always came out in 5400 rpm flavors, then as technology permitted, the 7200 rpm flavors.

 

Who knows, perhaps with the right hybrid technology, green won't matter as much any more with how much transfer could be saved from a large ssd cache.

[cyrnel]

"Seagate still sees hard drive shortages for several quarters"

 

updated 08:00 pm EST, Mon November 28, 2011

Seagate update paints dim picture

 

Seagate in an update warned that hard drive shortages relating to Thai flooding would last for the long term. It anticipated that shortages would go on for "several quarters." Although supply would improve in 2012, some PC builders would "optimize" by using fewer drives or models with lower capacity. ...continued...

 

From:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/11/28/seagate.update.paints.dim.picture.of/

 

Feh.

[kizer]

Here at work they just ordered 140 drives. Small price of $34,000

As well they are ordering 3 BlackBlaze Servers.

 

He did say CDW told them they see prices dropping soon. I however think if you order a lot you get a bulk discount. 

[intertan]

Western Digital restarts hard disk production

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57335859-92/western-digital-restarts-hard-disk-production/

 

well at least something has started to ease supply somewhat