Big Price Disaster! Hard Drives Went Up in Price A Lot! (laptop, RAM) - Computers -PCs, laptops, hardware, software - City-Data Forum

Jesse69 · 10-30-2011, 09:03 AM

Just check the online prices of hard drives. What caused them to go up in price so much?

I think China has cornered the market for rare earth materials. Could that be it?

Skunk Workz · 10-30-2011, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jesse69

Just check the online prices of hard drives. What caused them to go up in price so much?

I think China has cornered the market for rare earth materials. Could that be it?

It's actually the flooding in Thailand where lots of the drives are made.

Tek_Freek · 10-30-2011, 11:42 AM

Glad I'm not in the market for one

tobiasra · 10-31-2011, 03:09 AM

It is the flooding in Thailand which destroyed a lot of factories. Same thing happened to RAM prices in the start of the 2000s due to some natural disaster.

bs13690 · 11-01-2011, 12:52 PM

Ya, it's on account of the flooding. We just had a call this morning and were strongly advised to order any hard drives we need early.

Jesse69 · 11-01-2011, 04:33 PM

I went to MicroCenter and TigerDirect on Sunday to buy a 2TB hd. TigerDirects prices were already raised and they had a sign saying the latest price will ring up at the register. MicroCenter honored their sale prices but they said you were limited to two hard drives and that the prices will go up the next day. Got a 2 TB 64mb cache Western Digital Sata2 for $86 after tax.

CHTransplant · 11-02-2011, 02:59 PM

This article provides some perspective:

Hard drive shortage expected to hurt consumers most - Computerworld

Jesse69 · 11-02-2011, 06:16 PM

I think this hard drive problem will slow overall computer sales too, + hardware. So I guess Nvidia stock will go down.

Asheville Native · 11-03-2011, 08:57 PM

Contacted Dell today for a failing laptop hard drive. Had the error code from their diagnostics ready so I didn't spend a lot of time until the agreed the drive needs replacing.

They are now reading a disclaimer that due to the shortage of drives there is the possibility of a delay in receiving the replacement drive. Flooding is only 4 weeks old and already spares are in shortage.

Fortunately I checked a little later and an airbill number was posted on my service order and my replacement will be here tomorrow.

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Of course we could always buy US made drives............. Oh wait, no we can't

lifelongMOgal · 11-03-2011, 10:07 PM

Maybe some incentive to start making drives in the USA? Could we capture part of the market?