# Anyone watching hard drive prices



## momo33 (Oct 28, 2011)

It has gone mental in the uk. 500G cost about Â£28 a month ago, now their at over Â£100, people are even selling old ones for Â£50-100 on ebay. 

Come on america its time you upped the game and built more than malaysia. Save the world in a productive way.


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## wblock@ (Oct 28, 2011)

75% price increase so far.  And most places have a limit of one.  OTOH, it beats having a flood.


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## swa (Oct 28, 2011)

I really wonder why. Is it a worldwide thing? Because in Netherlands same thing with the hard disk prices rising very quick.


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## SirDice (Oct 28, 2011)

Haven't you been reading the news? It's because of the rain and flooding in Korea and other Asian countries where most of the harddrives are manufactured. Even Apple is having a hard time getting parts for their iPhone and Ipad.


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## Crivens (Oct 28, 2011)

No one keeps some weeks troughput in storage, me thinks (pun intended).
It is said that "just in time" really means "out of stock". So the price will be used to regulate the demand - and also to fill some pockets along the way, me thinks.


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## momo33 (Oct 28, 2011)

You're not joking! I have just watched drives from differing sources jump as much as Â£50+ overnight, and some people on the bay are selling used 750G ones for over Â£100. If my memory serves me right I watched memory prices freefall because of something ocurring in thailand a few years ago, so I am awaiting that one to resurface as well.


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## saxon3049 (Oct 28, 2011)

Yea I saw this happen, it's been horrific in price hike terms in the at least 24 hours.
Luckily I just got a few 1Tb drives for a project before this happened but so far two people I know offered me Â£75 for them.


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## wblock@ (Oct 31, 2011)

WD1002FAEX has gone from $80 to $119 to $149 and now $190 in what, two weeks?  How high will it go?


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## SirDice (Oct 31, 2011)

It's a question of availability and demand. If demand is high but availability low prices will go up. That's how economics work.


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## momo33 (Nov 1, 2011)

I got a 1TB WD friday for Â£54, the next day it was at Â£89. I spoke to someone in wholesale who says we can expect a 500G to hit around Â£190 by the middle to end of november.


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## wblock@ (Nov 1, 2011)

So far, the price increase looks linear.  Okay, economics is reasonable: as the availability approaches zero, price will approach infinity.  What I hadn't expected was the fast and continous price increase.  It turns out that having a single source of drives is a mistake.  Can't see Thailand getting back to production any sooner than several months, if that.  It will take China a while to ramp up, because it wasn't just drive manufacturers but manufacturers of parts for drives that are out of commission.  Even then, the price won't drop until all the backorders have been filled and there has been a glut for a while, which could be months or years later.  SSD prices might go up as people turn to them instead of hard drives.

So... anybody who needs any extra storage for the next six to 18 months is going to pay dearly or not be able to get it at all.

Additional: found this price tracker which shows graphically just what's happening to prices: http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16822136533


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## jake (Nov 1, 2011)

I guess it's stock related but you can still get things with hard drives in them cheaper than some hard drives currently are. We've been seeing a lot of people buying external hard drives or any other thing with a hard drive in it, pulling the drive out for a system and putting the chassis in the bin.


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## Crivens (Nov 1, 2011)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> SSD prices might go up as people turn to them instead of hard drives.



I smell an investment opportunity 
Ok, seriously, I planned to put some SSD into my laptop for some time, and this may very well be the wakeup call. Any good recomendations?


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## momo33 (Nov 2, 2011)

@jake
Yeah mine was a 1TB wd elements drive, I ripped the drive out and kept the insides though, I had this mad idea of using the parts to assemble a home made desktop cradle for sata - usb2. When I took the drive out it turned out to be a WD10EARS drive, I was kind of expecting to find a 500G with some sort of proprietry compression on board. Nice to see it wasnt, but I would guess that will be the next move for many people, using compression software to make the space go further again.


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## wblock@ (Nov 2, 2011)

Be aware that some external Toshiba drives have the USB circuitry integrated into the drive electronics.  It's not just a SATA drive with an adapter.

One problem with externals is figuring out what model or even brand of drive they contain.


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## SirDice (Nov 3, 2011)

Some background and additional information.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2011/11/03/disk_drive_prices_may_double/


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## wblock@ (Nov 3, 2011)

The third photo really tells the story: http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/10/thailand-floods-pass-their-peak/100181/


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## olav (Nov 3, 2011)

Nice photo gallery!


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## overmind (Nov 5, 2011)

It will take a year or more for prices to go down and I think will not be at the same level it was before shortage.


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## jem (Nov 7, 2011)

I bought some Samsung HD204UI disks back in March for Â£57.60.  Two weeks ago they were on promotion for about Â£48.  Today they're Â£179.99 from the same supplier.  Ouch


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