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Seagate & WD woes because of Thailand flooding.

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Gigantopithecus said:
Sure, if the last time you looked at hard drive prices was 2005. 🙄 Seriously, are you daft?
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I'm still seeing 1 TB SATA drives listed for $130. Sure, that's more than the $89 that you could have got them for earlier this year, but it's not what I'd consider to be a crisis.

With the way people are panicking about this, I was expecting most of the SKU's to be out of stock and the remaining drives to be $200.
 
ultimatebob said:
I'm still seeing 1 TB SATA drives listed for $130. Sure, that's more than the $89 that you could have got them for earlier this year, but it's not what I'd consider to be a crisis.

With the way people are panicking about this, I was expecting most of the SKU's to be out of stock and the remaining drives to be $200.
Click to expand...

Considering I bought some 1.5TB drives for $50 each a couple months ago, seeing 1TB for $130 is no small jump. Give it a couple of months and supply is going to thin out significantly as OEMs scramble to secure enough drives to sell systems.
 
e-drood said:
reasonable question

in Thailand you would seek to partner with a principle Thai family (historic supporter of the monarchy, say 150-200yrs) or a first tier merchant family (usually at least 3rd gen, prewar beginnings)
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Would the allocated crown lands (for foreign businesses) in your previous post be considered Thai govt property or is it the property of the crown?

The royal family have managed to wrest back lots of 'their' property after being cut down to size in the republican coup back in the 1930s until they can't seem to distinguish what belongs to govt or the royal chestbox eg Vaji's airplane or is it the govts jet...

The elite families who control the economy furthur typifies the mafia-like manner of how things are really done behind the facade of a modern nation-state. Hopefully there will be some justice when the ol boy croaks in his hospital bed.
 
what some people are failing to realize is that the HDD mfgrs will be literally forced to maintain their already dwindling share of the market by increasing production ASAP. Even at the cost of expanding other facilities. Of course that takes time.. but this will not be nearly as bad as some are predicting because they will not want to lose even more future HDD sales to SSD's. The up until recent price drops are a testament to that fact already as they are simply lowering prices to maintain the volume needed to make enough profit. I'm almost positive that for every few SSD's sold.. they are losing a potential HDD sale.

And to make matters even worse for them.. as SSD's become cheaper and cheaper over the next 2 years?.. they will be forced to accept even smaller profit margins to keep the stockholders happy with sufficient sales volume. Selling more units at smaller profit margins is usually better than fewer units at larger margins, in most scenarios. Think about Walmart and the success they have from that idealogy.

But without the booming SSD maket pushing them to keep up on supply?.. I can't even imagine what effect and for how long this sort of supply flow restriction would have. Hell.. they might even drag their heels a bit to keep prices up and control the market a bit longer. Basic supply and demand 101.
 
groberts101 said:
what some people are failing to realize is that the HDD mfgrs will be literally forced to maintain their already dwindling share of the market by increasing production ASAP. Even at the cost of expanding other facilities. Of course that takes time.. but this will not be nearly as bad as some are predicting because they will not want to lose even more future HDD sales to SSD's. The up until recent price drops are a testament to that fact already as they are simply lowering prices to maintain the volume needed to make enough profit. I'm almost positive that for every few SSD's sold.. they are losing a potential HDD sale.

And to make matters even worse for them.. as SSD's become cheaper and cheaper over the next 2 years?.. they will be forced to accept even smaller profit margins to keep the stockholders happy with sufficient sales volume. Selling more units at smaller profit margins is usually better than fewer units at larger margins, in most scenarios. Think about Walmart and the success they have from that idealogy.

But without the booming SSD maket pushing them to keep up on supply?.. I can't even imagine what effect and for how long this sort of supply flow restriction would have. Hell.. they might even drag their heels a bit to keep prices up and control the market a bit longer. Basic supply and demand 101.
Click to expand...

The SSD market IS hurting the old HDD manufacturers. Especially in the laptop space. However in the PC space they still have a grace period. Here SSDs are mainly used as boot drives on computers that still have significant HDD real estate. In fact with the ever increasing size of HD media, games, applications etc... I don't see SSDs being a viable replacement for HDDs in general for quite a few more years. We are looking at 2TB as the min you see on most desktop computers now and this will increase quickly to 3 and 4TB. It will take quite some time before SSDs are affordable in that kind of capacity. And quite frankly I don't really see the need for them ever to be because the usage scenario for SSDs is running programs, not storing and archiving. HDD manufacturers are feeling the pinch, especially in laptops where there IS only 1 drive, but they will be around for quite some time to come.
 
ultimatebob said:
I'm still seeing 1 TB SATA drives listed for $130. Sure, that's more than the $89 that you could have got them for earlier this year, but it's not what I'd consider to be a crisis.

With the way people are panicking about this, I was expecting most of the SKU's to be out of stock and the remaining drives to be $200.
Click to expand...

If you were paying $90 for 1TB drives earlier this year, you were paying way too much for them.

Before the flooding really started wreaking havoc on the supply chain, 1TB mainstream drives were regularly available for $50. 500GB drives were day to day at $40, hitting $30 occasionally, and bottomed out at $25. Now the cheapest 500GB drive on Newegg is $100+shipping. That's an increase of 250% for a single part and the extra $60 now represents a 20% increase in the cost of my most popular $300 budget build.

Every single online retailer I've looked at has a big fat LIMIT 1 on every internal hard drive. For those of us who build systems, that's a pain in the ass. No, it's not the same as being totally out of stock, but it's inconvenient. A 20% increase in total system cost is very aggravating.

Just because a $50 increase for the cost of your annual upgrade isn't a big deal to you, doesn't mean it's not a big deal to other people.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
If you were paying $90 for 1TB drives earlier this year, you were paying way too much for them.

Before the flooding really started wreaking havoc on the supply chain, 1TB mainstream drives were regularly available for $50. 500GB drives were day to day at $40, hitting $30 occasionally, and bottomed out at $25. Now the cheapest 500GB drive on Newegg is $100+shipping. That's an increase of 250% for a single part and the extra $60 now represents a 20% increase in the cost of my most popular $300 budget build.

Every single online retailer I've looked at has a big fat LIMIT 1 on every internal hard drive. For those of us who build systems, that's a pain in the ass. No, it's not the same as being totally out of stock, but it's inconvenient. A 20% increase in total system cost is very aggravating.

Just because a $50 increase for the cost of your annual upgrade isn't a big deal to you, doesn't mean it's not a big deal to other people.
Click to expand...


And it's. A HUGE deal for computer retailers like Ncix. Newegg and the like.
 
Locut0s said:
The SSD market IS hurting the old HDD manufacturers. Especially in the laptop space. However in the PC space they still have a grace period. Here SSDs are mainly used as boot drives on computers that still have significant HDD real estate. In fact with the ever increasing size of HD media, games, applications etc... I don't see SSDs being a viable replacement for HDDs in general for quite a few more years. We are looking at 2TB as the min you see on most desktop computers now and this will increase quickly to 3 and 4TB. It will take quite some time before SSDs are affordable in that kind of capacity. And quite frankly I don't really see the need for them ever to be because the usage scenario for SSDs is running programs, not storing and archiving. HDD manufacturers are feeling the pinch, especially in laptops where there IS only 1 drive, but they will be around for quite some time to come.
Click to expand...


yeah.. wasn't trying to be too extreme or dramatic there. Just that this issue could potentially cause them to lose a bit more traction than they already have.

Next year alone you will begin to see more SSD based storage due to size and pricing. Then the following year.. even moreso.

I've said it once before(maybe in this thread?).. but the gain between a SSD that reads at ultra low latency with only 200MB/s read speed capability.. compared to an HDD array that reads at much higher latency with 700MB/s read speed capability is not anywhere what most would expect.

10 times out of 10.. the SSD will show you much better file opening performance and you will perceive it as being faster regardless of the much lower sequential speeds. That ultra low latency is what we see the most and I can't wait to have 8 large SSD's for dedicated storage. HDD would then be used for cheap redundancy alone.
 
Locut0s said:
And it's. A HUGE deal for computer retailers like Ncix. Newegg and the like.
Click to expand...

And people like me that wholesale HDD to those vendors. 🙁

~30 % of my take home is/was from HDD sales.

And Gigantopithecus - we sell more than 1 at a time. 🙂
 
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SuperSix said:
And people like me that wholesale HDD to those vendors. 🙁

~30 % of my take home is/was from HDD sales.

And Gigantopithecus - we sell more than 1 at a time. 🙂
Click to expand...

Ouch yeah I feel for you there. How much have you lost in terms of total take home would you estimate?

Sounds like a similar percentage of sales at the retail end too. Trying to remember what I sold in an average week at NCIX, 20-30% from HDD sales alone doesn't sound too far off the mark. It's kind of the bread and butter of the industry. The one part in your computer, no mater if you are grandma or Google, that you can guarantee you will need to upgrade and or replace on a frequent basis.

It effects more than just HDDs of course. Retail stores that cater to enthusiast like NCIX/Newegg will sell less of everything as system builders, gamers and enthusiast decide to hold off on that next planned upgrade till prices improve (which would have included other stuff besides the HDD).

I imagine even customers who buy direct in bulk like data centres and the like must be feeling the pinch too. Certainly they get first dibs and part of the reason for the price increase is that the consumers are getting what's left over of the limited stock after the big guys get their cut. But I imagine they've raised prices even for those guys.

But I'm not trying to paint the picture of a catastrophe. I'm sure they will ramp up production in time. But it will HURT in the mean time!
 
BFG10K said:
Nidec resumes production of motors for Hard Drives in Thailand:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storag...on_of_Motors_for_Hard_Drives_in_Thailand.html
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:thumbsup:

:hmm:

I wonder. What's the odds that this first few batches of HDDs might be flaky, RMA prone? I know that in the past there have been bad batches of drives due to things like clean room problems, or at least I believe this has been a cause. I can only imagine the pressure to ramp up production and overlook some of the finest details.

:hmm:
 
Looks like Newegg's prices have passed their peak. A single-platter 2.5" 500GB Samsung M8 is now $100, down from the peak of $130 a over a week ago (but still much more expensive than the $45 shell-shocker price less than 2 months ago).

And the 2TB Samsung F4 is down to $220 from $230. Still very expensive, but at least the price changes are in the right direction now.

(These are the only two drives to which I had subscribed a price watch...)
 
code65536 said:
Looks like Newegg's prices have passed their peak. A single-platter 2.5" 500GB Samsung M8 is now $100, down from the peak of $130 a over a week ago (but still much more expensive than the $45 shell-shocker price less than 2 months ago).

And the 2TB Samsung F4 is down to $220 from $230. Still very expensive, but at least the price changes are in the right direction now.

(These are the only two drives to which I had subscribed a price watch...)
Click to expand...

You can monitor lots of HD prices here... Huge spike as expected.
like
http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16822152238
 
Lolz!?! 😵
I just went to buy a SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 off newegg and the price is at $159.99 + $7.28 Shipping.

Immediately came here to find out why.
 
SuperSix said:
And people like me that wholesale HDD to those vendors. 🙁

~30 % of my take home is/was from HDD sales.

And Gigantopithecus - we sell more than 1 at a time. 🙂
Click to expand...

Yeah, and every tech company that uses quantities of spindle drives in their networking appliances and similar products, like mine does. The guys in Operations have had their hands full lately.

I worked for a storage startup that use 1TB/2TB disks in a 24 drive array, along with an SSD array as a special caching solution. They must be going nuts right about now.

I do expect that things will go back to normal in 6 months or so.


Locut0s said:
The SSD market IS hurting the old HDD manufacturers. Especially in the laptop space. However in the PC space they still have a grace period. Here SSDs are mainly used as boot drives on computers that still have significant HDD real estate. In fact with the ever increasing size of HD media, games, applications etc... I don't see SSDs being a viable replacement for HDDs in general for quite a few more years. We are looking at 2TB as the min you see on most desktop computers now and this will increase quickly to 3 and 4TB. It will take quite some time before SSDs are affordable in that kind of capacity. And quite frankly I don't really see the need for them ever to be because the usage scenario for SSDs is running programs, not storing and archiving. HDD manufacturers are feeling the pinch, especially in laptops where there IS only 1 drive, but they will be around for quite some time to come.
Click to expand...

I can't even imagine a 3TB SSD drive, much less two in RAID 0 for my BluRay burns. In ten years though, we'll all be shaking our heads in amazement, just like we are now for other reasons. I started using computers in the z80 and 286-10 days. I was compiling Turbo Pascal off a floppy.

And I was walking 10 miles to school and back every day, uphill both ways. In the snow.
 
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ultimatebob said:
I'm still seeing 1 TB SATA drives listed for $130. Sure, that's more than the $89 that you could have got them for earlier this year, but it's not what I'd consider to be a crisis.

With the way people are panicking about this, I was expecting most of the SKU's to be out of stock and the remaining drives to be $200.
Click to expand...

A couple of months ago I got a 2tb green drive for high 60s and a 1 tb black drive for low 70s...
 
ultimatebob said:
I'm still seeing 1 TB SATA drives listed for $130. Sure, that's more than the $89 that you could have got them for earlier this year, but it's not what I'd consider to be a crisis.

With the way people are panicking about this, I was expecting most of the SKU's to be out of stock and the remaining drives to be $200.
Click to expand...

You could get a 2TB for $80, sometimes $60 on sale.
 
This couldn't have come at a worse time for me. Hoping the prices drop soon. In the mean time I'm looking to find a couple HD103SJ on eBay
 
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