Cost of new hard drives

Here too, lucky I bought my box when I did ...
Always good to have spare disks around.
Mrk

 

just this week i found a great deal so i bought 3 dozen drives (i have a shop and will also buy more when i find another deal) i couldnt pass it up with the current pricing just in case. but yes same here.

here's a hint.... look for deals on EXTERNAL enclosures (except any 2.5" ones made by western digital since they do not have sata connectors but they have a usb connector solder to the drive directly. anything seagate is fine) and remove the drives. i got 2.5" seagate 750gb 7200 rpm drives for 62$ and 500gb 5400.6 ones for 42$, and also 1tb 2.5" for 76$ as i bought them externally and removed the drives they are full retail drives with serials etc inside..this works for 3.5" versions as well. and they are almost half the price of bare drives right now.

 

good idea! seems easy enough to remove the casings,been watching a few vids on you tube,

 

Here in US, the prices of electronics usually spike in the months of Sept-October till thanksgiving holidays. Then they drop back down from thanksgiving till around 15th Jan. This is of course not a hard fast rule, just my personal observation over the years. So, wait for thanksgiving or Christmas or new year to get lowest prices on electronics in US market.

 

hdd's are not supposed to come back down till after march of next year

 

I have been watching this story and am glad I am getting one for Christmas (it has already been bought). I saw one article that has an analyst saying the supply could be critical for a good while and that PC makers might be underestimating how bad it might get.

 

I bought an external WD a couple of months ago so i'm good for a while.

 

I just saw a notice in my local Costco, that went something like "due to recent flooding in Thailand there is an acute shortage of Hard drives so please limit your purchase to only 2 at a time". So, the high prices of hard drives might stay as long as the situation remains the same.

 

Western Digital has announced it has resumed production of hard drives in one of its Thailand plants after the building was shut down for a number of weeks due to flooding in that country.

Western Digital has started making PC hard drives again in Thailand. In a press release this week, the company announced that it had resumed operations in one of its Thailand buildings after massive flooding in that country caused Western Digital to shut down its manufacturing operations. The building in question was in six feet of water just six weeks ago. The plant reopened about a week ahead of schedule, according to the statement.

Yet another Western Digital production facility in Thailand is still under two feet of water. The company said that plant will be pumped dry within 10 days, after which Western Digital will decontaminate the facility and start its refurbishment.

Even though it has started making hard drives again in Thailand, Western Digital says that the current hard drive shortages due to the floods is still expected to continue for the next several months. It estimates that the company will produce a total of 120 million hard drives for the fourth quarter of 2011. However, Western Digital estimates that demand for its hard drives will be between 170 million to 180 million units for the same time period.

While more hard drive plants will continue to come back online, it's clear that shortages will continue for some time and as a result prices for the few remaining hard drives will be much higher than normal.


http://www.neowin.net/news/western-digital-resumes-hdd-production-in-thailand

 

I was just planning to purchase a HDD this last week but the prices here where i am skyrocketed at least 200%!!

 

It is good to hear that WD is getting ramped back up into production. I note Seagate, while none of their factories were affected, was basically at a work-stoppage due to its suppliers being flooded. Seagate announced it would not be until Q3 or Q4 of 2012 before it is back to pre-flood production levels.

For us consumers who buy one or two drives at a time, our options will remain limited for some time as Dell, HP, Acer, etc. have contractual agreements with the HD makers to supply millions of drives. So they surely will get first dibs. Hopefully the monster retail chains (like Wal-mart) will use their clout to help us out.

That said, SSD prices are still coming down.

 

samsung has been dropping prices of their drives since they have factories in korea

 

I think that is a smart business move too. For one, they sell more drives. But also, they could have taken advantage of the situation by taking the evil approach and raise prices to gouge consumers during a crisis. So I applaud Samsung for that.

 

Didn't Samsung sell it's HDD division?

 

Yes and no. Samsung went into an agreement with Seagate where Seagate took over production of Samsung hard drives, and then in the same agreement, Samsung bought Seagate!

 

That I didn't know, interesting. Thanks for the new news
I only knew about the first part before, a little confusing

 

Wait wait wait!
So in layman's terms, at the end Samsung bought Seagate? So Seagate will no longer exist?

 

AFAIK Yes they will. They just got new owners, but the brand will still exist

 

seagate will be ran as seagate and samsung as samsung. no differences for the end consumer except they will now share technologies and manufacturing

 

I think in the end, we will no longer see any Samsung branded hard drives - they will all be Seagate drives. Since I cannot remember the last time I saw a Samsung hard drive, I don't think they will be missed.

 

i see tons of them all the time....as well as hitachi still

 

I might have spoke a bit too sood, but I note Newegg sells only 6 Samsung drives, and 1 of those is "refurbished". So regardless they are not big players.

 

I think Samsung and Seagate have decided to merge there conventional hard drive and SSD business together. Seagte is famous for their conventional hard drives while Samsung makes excellent SSDs. So, after this merger you will see Samsung SSDs with Seagate branded on them and Samsung will probably share profits from Seagate's conventional hard drive business.

Anyway, how many hard drive manufactures depend on Thailand for their parts etc. Does anyone know?

 

Dealer sees hard drive prices ease

12/5/2011 6:18 PM EST

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Prices of hard disk drives are on the decline following floods in Thailand, but they are not yet at back at historical levels, according to an executive with one unauthorized distributor.

"We've seen a lot of calming in the entire situation in the last couple weeks," said Lee Ackerley, a director and co-founder of N.F. Smith & Associates (Houston), an independent component dealer. Prices "have come back down and evened off, but they are not back to original prices," he said.

It could take until after the holiday buying season before anyone knows at what point shortages will abate. The floods also affected some sole-sourced resistors and capacitors used in hard disks and cars, he said.

"The PC industry definitely showed agility moving from one [hard disk] density to another, quickly specifying other parts according to their availability--it was pretty impressive," he said.

Last week hard drive maker Western Digital reported it has been able to re-open one of its Thailand facilities. It also raised its quarterly earnings forecast to $1.8 billion from 1.25 billion.




http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4231122/Dealer-sees-hard-drive-prices-ease