Hard Drive prices skyrocket - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Flabbibulin · 11-17-2011, 09:05 AM

Not sure how many IT guys there are around here, but anyone else being effected by this? I guess it has something to do with flooding in Thailand, but prices through all of our suppliers have increased as much as 3X in the last couple weeks or so... No big deal if you only need a couple, but we're trying to set up a new 32 bay array... awful timing

Bob · 11-17-2011, 09:28 AM

What's worse, the hoarders are out in full force buying up all the cheap drives from Best Buy, Future Shop, et al and trying to flip them on Kijiji/Ebay/etc. Ebay prices for 2 TB WD drives show major gouging going on.

Big-box stores are one the only places where you can still find drives for reasonable prices, though there seems to be a little bit of a reprieve lately in some of the other vendor prices. Witness the prices for a 3 TB Hitachi at Newegg over the past month or so. A few weeks ago, Best Buy was selling the drive for $150 when Newegg wanted $289! It's also still possible to find non-crazy prices on drives at a few outlets, but I think their stock is being snapped up pretty quickly.

Major distributers (Dell, Acer, etc.) are supposedly okay for now, but I've heard that Dell is completely out of 250 GB drives and is now giving everyone free upgrades to 320 GB drives. A few weeks ago, Acer said they would run out of drives completely in December. Given the problems in restarting some of the plants, I've read predictions claiming that prices won't return to normal for a *year*.

Other price trends:
2 TB WD Green
Samsung 2 TB

I haven't even looked at SAS drive prices, but given how sky high they normally are, I'm almost afraid to look.

Flabbibulin · 11-17-2011, 09:38 AM

We are after 1TB Sata 3's, but i cant find them any near the regular price (getting some new quotes this afternoon though).

J Diddy · 11-17-2011, 09:42 AM

If you are building a SAN you may want to check with Dell. We are just about to replace our EMC SAN and the cost from Dell right now is 50% less than what we were quoted when harddrive prices were not inflated. It's now a no brainer to go ahead with the replacement. I'm guessing Dell has long term prices in place for drives.

Flabbibulin · 11-17-2011, 09:48 AM

Yup, a few people people have mentioned Dell to me... We have never really dealt with them oddly enough.. I remember the Dell website prices were all elevated, but we may need to go through a reseller.

TorqueDog · 11-17-2011, 10:15 AM

Gord Downey: "Thaaaaailand is sinkin' man, and I don't wanna swiiiiim!"

woob · 11-17-2011, 10:15 AM

Arg, I knew I should have bought my HDs for my storage PC a couple months ago!

DownhillGoat · 11-17-2011, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by woob

Arg, I knew I should have bought my HDs for my storage PC a couple months ago!

I feel for you. Started putting together some HTPC options a few months ago. Bought two 3tb drives, thinking I'll add more later. Apparently that didn't work out too well.

I ended up putting the whole thing on hold, except wanted to buy another 6tb for backup as I'd hate to lose all my work now. Memex ended up raising the price by $100 after I placed an order with them and wouldn't honour the price I ordered them at. Fortunately I got two from Best Buy the morning they were raising their prices, and hadn't changed the sticker on the floor yet.

Tinordi · 11-17-2011, 11:50 AM

I had an old failed 2TB drive sitting around for like 8 months that was still under warranty. I sent it in a couple of days ago. I didn't originally send it in because I thought that the hassle of doing the whole RMA process was worse than just buying a new drive. Now that the price has more than doubled....

FlameOn · 11-17-2011, 03:46 PM

Huge problem with how our tech is manufactured these days. All these different components are sourced from only a few locations. Remember when the Tsunami crisis hit Japan and suddenly all the electronics prices went up because of parts shortages? Thailand gets hit and now all our hard drives cost more... you think after a few disasters companies would be starting plans to increase redundancy in their supply chain.

mykalberta · 11-17-2011, 04:07 PM

Wow, even MemX has jacked their prices on HDs.

I am glad I have 2TB free

TWIT talked about it, it has something to do with Japan mostly since alot of parts are single sourced at locations.

REDVAN · 11-17-2011, 04:31 PM

Will the prices go back down when the stock rebuilds, or is this going to be just like gasoline?

BlackArcher101 · 11-17-2011, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by REDVAN

Will the prices go back down when the stock rebuilds, or is this going to be just like gasoline?

It will go back down, but unfortunately that will likely take a while to get inventory back up. Not like gasoline where the threat of just increasing production changes pricing.

simmonjam1 · 11-17-2011, 04:59 PM

We heard from our supplier that the problem stems from the flooding in Thailand and they don't expect to be in full production until Q2 next year.

Hack&Lube · 11-17-2011, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Wow, even MemX has jacked their prices on HDs.

I am glad I have 2TB free

TWIT talked about it, it has something to do with Japan mostly since alot of parts are single sourced at locations.

1. Thailand is where many of the main harddrive factories are located. Western Digital was hit hardest. Seagate got away without severe flooding.

2. China is artificially restricting the supply (to raise commodity prices) of mined rare earths, the key component of harddrive manufacture and China is the largest supplier of rare earths in the world.

SebC · 11-17-2011, 07:16 PM

So how long to wait this out? (I bought a 3TB external, so I'm good for a while. Would love to upgrade my internal program drive though, stupid Steam sales...)

MaDMaN_26 · 11-17-2011, 10:16 PM

This really sucks... I was thinking of building a new PC or severly increasing my storage space... either way blech... Plus I read the failure rate of SSD was equal to HDD meaning right now until the tech is better speed is the only advantage... and less chance of recovery on failure... the Tech needs to get better on SSd before its really worth the moola $$

DownhillGoat · 11-17-2011, 10:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SebC

So how long to wait this out? (I bought a 3TB external, so I'm good for a while. Would love to upgrade my internal program drive though, stupid Steam sales...)

Any articles I've read are saying a minimum of a year before supplies are back back to normal and prices are close to what they were this past summer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

the Tech needs to get better on SSd before its really worth the moola $$

When prices on a SATA drive are more than an SSD, or SATAs are unavailable, the price of an SSD won't seem that high...

MaDMaN_26 · 11-17-2011, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

When prices on a SATA drive are more than an SSD, or SATAs are unavailable, the price of an SSD won't seem that high...

true enough... I cant believe Thailand makes 47% of the *worlds* HDD....

Hack&Lube · 11-17-2011, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaDMaN_26

This really sucks... I was thinking of building a new PC or severly increasing my storage space... either way blech... Plus I read the failure rate of SSD was equal to HDD meaning right now until the tech is better speed is the only advantage... and less chance of recovery on failure... the Tech needs to get better on SSd before its really worth the moola $$

I've never heard of a failure rate with SSDs equal to mechanical drives. SSD failure is mostly tied to certain manufacturers. Ones from Intel, Crucial, etc. are rock solid, even if you write tons to them (which any smart SSD user should avoid anyway).