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Hard drive shortage

Gmanx
polycounter lvl 19
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Gmanx polycounter lvl 19
Frankly unbelievable news - UK retailer 'Scan' is rationing HDD sales after recent flooding in Thailand destroyed much of the world's manufacturing plants:

http://www.scan.co.uk/info/wd/page1

QUOTE: Devastating floods have crippled Thailand, affecting many areas Domestic & Industrial, and as a result the majority of the World's Hard Disk Drive production has ceased for the foreseeable future.
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  • Del
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    Del polycounter lvl 9
    ~ Not really 'unbelievable'.

    The prices of hard drives shot up pretty much overnight last week. I don't people realise how much of Thailand is getting wiped out as we speak. I get the impression (especially in American news) that's its almost ignored.

    Once it hit Bangkok 2weeks ago and devoured all the factories it was pretty much inevitable that hard drives would run out soon after.

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    Click Here to donate to some of the nine million people affected. Help me donate and save some lives. Hard drives can wait.
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  • Gmanx
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    Gmanx polycounter lvl 19
    Wow. It's unbelievable or at least very surprising that a whole sector of industry could be decimated so completely like this.

    Another news piece here:
    http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/11/07/hard-disk-component-supply-could-take-years/1

    It doesn't seem to have been very visible (news wise) outside tech websites. Certainly not in the national UK TV news anyway?
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  • Del
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    Del polycounter lvl 9
    Gmanx wrote: »
    Wow. It's unbelievable or at least very surprising that a whole sector of industry could be decimated so completely like this.

    Another news piece here:
    http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/11/07/hard-disk-component-supply-could-take-years/1

    It doesn't seem to have been very visible (news wise) outside tech websites. Certainly not in the national UK TV news anyway?

    ~ News focus was on Gadaffi and #Occupy protests as they were at a similar time the floods began. The bloodlust for the Libyan leader outweighed the a natural disaster, but I think people will be freaking out soon enough now they realise Hard Drives are pretty much gonna be x10 the cost they once were.




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  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    wow, this is terrible.

    digging the guy with the jet-ski though!
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  • Skillmister
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    Skillmister polycounter lvl 11
    The 320gb drive i bought a while ago for £30 is now £80 :o
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  • Jesse Moody
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    Jesse Moody polycounter lvl 17
    yeah hard drives have gone up constantly since the flooding began. They are starting to hit insane prices. Might be time to pick up that SSD drive fellas since those are made in a different location.

    My guess is if these factories are completely destroyed and the nature of how hard drives are made it might be some time before this is fixed.
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  • Wesley
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    Wesley polycounter lvl 13
    From what I remember hearing on Tested.com's podcast, Thailand's HDD production made up 25% of the total output. Also, a lot of this price inflation is also driven by consumer buying.
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  • Andreas
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    Andreas polycounter lvl 11
    What the hell?? How is this the first I am hearing of this?? 2 weeks!
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  • Ace-Angel
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    Ace-Angel polycounter lvl 12
    So this is it. The reason people will start buying SSD drives is because the other products has become expensive, not because it's better.

    Human nature is so fickle.

    EDIT: Just looked up some numbers on the cheap, and bloody hell:
    A 100GB SSD for around 169$
    A 100GB HDD for around 100$

    I bought a 1TB external HDD for under 100$, right now, they're going for average of 150-175+ on some places.

    So let me guess...99% of the world relied on the 1% percent for HDD's?
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  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    SSD's are still too expensive to warrant the purchase.

    the only advantage they have is speed. but if you have to choose between speed, or reliability and storage capacity, then an HDD will win for anyone on a budget.
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  • oXYnary
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    oXYnary polycounter lvl 18
    We can only now send one bad drive a week back for warranty replacements. While we are backed up for replacement drives as well since newegg business is only sending one out a week.
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  • EarthQuake
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    EarthQuake mod
    almighty_gir wrote: »
    SSD's are still too expensive to warrant the purchase.

    the only advantage they have is speed. but if you have to choose between speed, or reliability and storage capacity, then an HDD will win for anyone on a budget.

    You're going to rely on a spinning disk with many moving parts to last the long haul, over flash memory? Lol "only advantage". Sure if you need to store 4TB of games and porn SSD isn't quite affordable yet, but SSD will soon be the standard for MANY reasons.
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  • almighty_gir
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    almighty_gir ngon master
    EarthQuake wrote: »
    You're going to rely on a spinning disk with many moving parts to last the long haul, over flash memory? Lol "only advantage". Sure if you need to store 4TB of games and porn SSD isn't quite affordable yet, but SSD will soon be the standard for MANY reasons.

    yeah i absolutely agree, but as of right now that's not the case.

    i'd love to see the rage from general users who buy new computers once SSD's become standard, and kill it with their monthly defrag. hahaha.
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  • Bigjohn
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    Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
    Well... if it can't store porn...
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  • Firebrand
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    Firebrand
    First of all, a shame about the flooding.

    The price of HDDs going up is an inconvenience (I need a few more TB myself) but the flooding is devastating.
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  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    Dreamer wrote: »
    I get the impression (especially in American news) that's its almost ignored.

    I watch the news almost every night, and if it wasn't for the internet I would have no idea Thailand had been flooded. US news channels tend to be very limited in what they cover.
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  • ErichWK
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    ErichWK polycounter lvl 12
    PolyHertz wrote: »
    I watch the news almost every night, and if it wasn't for the internet I would have no idea Thailand had been flooded. US news channels tend to be very limited in what they cover.

    They only care about missing white girls and sex scandals.
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