The recent dreadful flooding in Thailand has forced the closure of
several hard drive factories. The immediate concerns of course, are for
the health and wellbeing of the people living and working in the area.
The wider concern is the severe restriction in hard drive manufacturing
capacity. Already, prices have doubled or tripled, depending on the
exact model affected. The biggest HD manufacturer, Western Digital, has
been hit the hardest, as IDC predicts that up to 75% of its production
will be shut down. This means, that the big corporate HDD customers,
those like HP and Dell, who build computer system
in large volumes, will get whatever inventory is available to fully
satisfy their needs. Whatever is left is then sold on to the retail
channel, for ordinary consumers to buy. IDC believes that hard disk
production will reach pre-flood levels by around March, but that HDD
levels by then will be very low. The prices should go through the roof
then, in the meantime. As expected, this will also increase the prices
of complete systems, as such a price hike is too much to absorb fully.
Source: Network World
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