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Seagate & WD woes because of Thailand flooding.

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Darn it, I should have built a super NAS last month. Gaah. Never thought I would buy a 2TB hard drive from best buy and feel like I actually got a good deal on it at $109.
 
I was just saving up a bit more money before ordering my 8TB FreeNAS build. I thought it wouldn't hurt to wait a few more weeks. MAN I thought wrong.
 
Locut0s said:
From what I understand just about the entire industries manufacturing capacity was in Thailand and no they can't build a new facility that quickly. These facilities are extremely expensive to build and require huge investment to get up and running.
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so they all built in an area susceptible to flooding, but they dont have flood insurance?

either way, they have the money to build new facilities. and if they cant get a new plant up and running within a year, then maybe the easteners really are 1/3 less productive then an average american... because nearly all the buildings we build today are done in months time, not years.
 
BladeVenom said:
According to that article it's only going to cause a 10% price increase in the fourth quarter. I think it's going to go higher than that.
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ASP is just that... an average. Seagate had supposedly already negotiated and is under contract for prices in Q4 with most or all of the major PC vendors. This means those ASPs are a result of significant increases in the smaller channels to make up for the fact that HP and Dell are not getting gouged.

If there's still an issue for Q1, you can expect retail channel prices to potentially come down some as they add a couple bucks to drives from HP, Dell, etc...

You gotta remember that sales from newegg and Fry's and such are only a small chunk of the total sales.
 
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you sure RE4 drives seem to have gone up a bit more than 10% and it looks like folks are hoarding stock
 
wirednuts said:
so they all built in an area susceptible to flooding, but they dont have flood insurance?

either way, they have the money to build new facilities. and if they cant get a new plant up and running within a year, then maybe the easteners really are 1/3 less productive then an average american... because nearly all the buildings we build today are done in months time, not years.
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They have money but state of the art clean room facilities and manufacturing lines kept at clean room conditions cost many billions of dollars to build. So while they will rebuild even for the likes of these companies it's not a small amount of $$ And the speed at which they can build such places would have a lot to do with the speed at which they can get in all the specialized equipment. Building the shell of the building is nothing. The Billions of dollars of specialized equipment that's in the building and that likely come from overseas, that's what's going to slow them down.
 
that's the rational western view of the world --- however the reality in Thailand is that the alternative land sites must be reviewed by various gov't & religious organizations to vet use of land by farang, only then negotiate use fees, licenses & workforce salaries (any physical relocation of workers results in salary adjustments - don't ask why)

actually it's less expensive & faster to restart in another east asian country after near complete plant facilities destruction by flooding

AND THE FLOODING WILL SIMPLY HAPPEN AGAIN
 
e-drood said:
that's the rational western view of the world --- however the reality in Thailand is that the alternative land sites must be reviewed by various gov't & religious organizations to vet use of land by farang, only then negotiate use fees, licenses & workforce salaries (any physical relocation of workers results in salary adjustments - don't ask why)

actually it's less expensive & faster to restart in another east asian country after near complete plant facilities destruction by flooding

AND THE FLOODING WILL SIMPLY HAPPEN AGAIN
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Huh interesting thanks for the info. I'm somewhat familiar with Asian bureaucracies, but not Thailand specifically, so I'm not surprised. Well I'm not personally familiar with them but I lived in China for 4 years as a young kid and I've seen, heard, read a lot from my family and friends of family.
 
as King Bumibol has grown older, the size of the Crown lands has declined

the King used his descretionary powers to allocate Crown land to desireable and/or significant foreign companies ("farang" companies) and virtually ALL red tape cut by King's sword... but two decades have now passed and the increasingly factional "gov't" + civil service is extremely time consuming & expensive to have as your business partner...

having said this, it is also the way of "the globe" minus N.A. + Western EU for those making business investments...

at the end of the day it is not about the "cost" of doing business, rather it is very much about whether you can meet production schedules and make timely shipments --- national infrastructure is a major consideration, as is political stability while the "anticipated" forces of nature throw in a wild card...
 
e-drood said:
as King Bumibol has grown older, the size of the Crown lands has declined

the King used his descretionary powers to allocate Crown land to desireable and/or significant foreign companies ("farang" companies) and virtually ALL red tape cut by King's sword... but two decades have now passed and the increasingly factional "gov't" + civil service is extremely time consuming & expensive to have as your business partner...

having said this, it is also the way of "the globe" minus N.A. + Western EU for those making business investments...

at the end of the day it is not about the "cost" of doing business, rather it is very much about whether you can meet production schedules and make timely shipments --- national infrastructure is a major consideration, as is political stability while the "anticipated" forces of nature throw in a wild card...
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Thanks for the info! Is it also like China in that there's the "official" way that you mention here and then there's the grease the palms method that is available to those with connections and a little extra dough? Basically you can go through months and months of red tape or a few tens of thousands to the right people and it gets done surprisingly fast 😉 Though large companies probably have to go the official route due to legitimacy issues.
 
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)

in PRC you would seek to align (partnership implies having equal status, which never occurs {First Among Equals always prevails & (all) others are not in this group) with one of the Revolutionary Families - the present generation are refered to as Princelings (spell?) just remember that you are a minority member in any business relationships, guanxi rules as long as you remember your place

the Thai understand the necessity of farang partners, even if they do not want them, the prc really does not want any form of foreign control of any business activities and actively discriminates in many subtle and overt ways

First Among Equals is both an economic mantra and more importantly the political mantra, best to remember this at all times - aligning with the newly billionaire pig farmer serves NO useful purpose and costs you alot of money to learn
 
Wohoo! I just ordered a 2TB Seagate green drive from Best Buy for just $75 (pre-tax) (in store pickup only; no ship-to-store or ship-to-home). Most stores are out of stock, but I found one not too far that still had some. Hopefully, this will help tide me over for the next year or so...
 
code65536 said:
Wohoo! I just ordered a 2TB Seagate green drive from Best Buy for just $75 (pre-tax) (in store pickup only; no ship-to-store or ship-to-home). Most stores are out of stock, but I found one not too far that still had some. Hopefully, this will help tide me over for the next year or so...
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LOL who would have thought we'd see the day where we would preferentially go to Best Buy for computer hardware due to the price. :biggrin:
 
code65536 said:
Wohoo! I just ordered a 2TB Seagate green drive from Best Buy for just $75 (pre-tax) (in store pickup only; no ship-to-store or ship-to-home). Most stores are out of stock, but I found one not too far that still had some. Hopefully, this will help tide me over for the next year or so...
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Grrrrr.... I was about to thank you, but it looks like they're out. I tried to order one, and when it gets to the point where it asks you which store you'd like to have the drive shipped to, it says unavailable. For every store.
 
Interesting. I just saw like yesterday a 2TB Seagate drive for $79 or something like that at a local BestBuy and thought it's dirt cheap.
 
AdamK47 said:
I really don't see how this flood could affect the prices as much as it has.
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But if gas prices can jump to 5 bucks a gallon overnight just because another refinery gets shut down?.. anything seems possible.

That's just capitalism at its finest there, bud. Greed and corruption right at its center with man steering the way. Not saying I would want it any other way.. just that it's no big surprise. :\

I say don't buy the stuff and let vendors sit on the reserves for a bit until the demand dies enough to make them blink, think, and adjust the sticker price to move the merchandise. Hey!.. I'm a poet and I didn't even know it.

Oh well.. makes raiding up a bunch of smaller drives look better and better, if you ask me. :awe:
 
Boy, Newegg sure hasn't hesitated to jack prices up either. You know it's big news when the New York Times devotes a front-page article to this topic. But they made it sound like people could expect to see prices go up by 30-40%. They're more than tripling! Newegg is definitely profiteering. Wish I grabbed a larger drive when I could, but it looks like I'll rub along for awhile longer without it.
 
groberts101 said:
That's just capitalism at its finest there, bud. Greed and corruption right at its center with man steering the way. Not saying I would want it any other way.. just that it's no big surprise. :\
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Capitalism is also the reason they ever became affordable to the masses in the first place.

I think this is BS though, I have been to the Seagate plant in Mexico just over the Texas
boarder. Why not just beef this one up as it does not flood there. Maybe that is why Seagate stock is up.
 
AdamK47 said:
I really don't see how this flood could affect the prices as much as it has.
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On one hand, the market is already flooded with product. On the other hand, there is going to come a time in the near future where supply is way down.
 
ccbadd said:
Capitalism is also the reason they ever became affordable to the masses in the first place.

I think this is BS though, I have been to the Seagate plant in Mexico just over the Texas
boarder. Why not just beef this one up as it does not flood there. Maybe that is why Seagate stock is up.
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Seagates stock is up due to better than expected earnings last quarter. They also got the OK to move forward with the purchase of Samsung's hard drive business.
 
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