Hard Drive Prices Slide As Thai Flood Aftermath Subsides 155
New submitter yeszomgpony writes "For the first time since the Thailand flooding, hard drive prices are finally starting to decrease. The price jump was kicked off in October when drive inventory levels plummeted 90% in less than a week. From the article: 'Over the past few weeks, hard drive prices have leveled off and have begun to drop slowly, according to Dynamite's data. "For first time, less than week after Western Digital's first [fabrication plant] went back on line, drive inventory began increasing at both distributors and ecommerce sites, and index prices began coming down a little too," Kubicki said. IDC has predicted that hard disk drive supply shortages in the wake of Thailand flooding would affect consumers, computer system manufacturers and corporate IT shops into 2013.'"
Be on the lookout for quality issues. (Score:5, Informative)
This often happens when a process goes off line for a time. It also normally works itself out after a few months.
I'll be waiting a few months myself.
Re:its bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Goes to prove yet again how the "free market", that weird beast so idolized by economists, is such a fickle creature. Cause after over several months underwater, there is NO way you are gonna get a clean room facility up to snuff & speed in a matter of days. Of course, now that the excuse is over, all the hoarding speculators are trembling in fear of getting stuck with their huge stockpile and will start to desperately flood the market.
Re:Where else do our parts come from? (Score:5, Informative)
The camera world, OTOH, was hit pretty heavily by the tsunami. All of the big manufacturers lost significant chunks of their production capacity, and the effects are still being felt in terms of shortages, delays in introducing new models, etc...
Re:Where else do our parts come from? (Score:2, Informative)
The SonyEricsson Xperia Pro phone was seriously delayed by the tsunami. Demoed at CES in January, release was planned for mid-April originally, but it hit the shelves worldwide in October!
Re:Where else do our parts come from? (Score:4, Informative)
Conversely, it's surprising how little the Japanese tsunami affected the tech world. I guess their industries were concentrated further south.
I seem to recall Japanese auto makers had a tough time dealing with the earthquake/tsunami. Not only were their latest ready-to-ship inventory flooded out, substantial portions of their supply chain for parts and equipment were similarly impacted by quake/flood damage. Given how much electronics are in automobiles these days, it kind of counts doesn't it? Granted, a lot of the tech that goes into cars are not exclusive to the auto industry.
Re:its bullshit (Score:4, Informative)
Cause after over several months underwater, there is NO way you are gonna get a clean room facility up to snuff & speed in a matter of days.
Not days. Restoring the WD factory took about 6 weeks [forbes.com]. It's still a bit spurious, I'll give you that.
Re:Seagate (Score:4, Informative)
Simple:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/seagate-samsung-acquisition/ [nytimes.com]
http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/07/western-digital-drops-4-3-billion-to-acquire-hitachi-gst-enter/ [engadget.com]
http://www.crn.com/news/storage/188100939/seagate-wraps-up-maxtor-acquisition.htm [crn.com]
When/if the Hitachi acquisition closes, you only have two vendors in the spinning magnetic disk market. Last time there was a large industry shift to shorter warranties, one or two companies did not and after a few months the rest of the industry moved back. With only two companies in play, it's far less likely someone will retain long warranty as a competitive advantage. Same reason why the flood was so devastating, one company consolidates so much in one location and a natural disaster wipes out half the manufacturing capacity of that industry.
Re:Perspective (Score:4, Informative)
So will you take that dispassionate viewpoint if your wife/gf/mother/father dropped dead suddenly?
No, but I wouldn't expect comments about it to be posted to slashdot without being modded "offtopic". because if my (very aged) parents died, it would be meaningless to anyone who doesn't know them.
Unless you know them personally, the 600 dead isn't news, it's gossip. The price of hard drives affects all of us.
You are, in fact, the one without a sense of perspective. What about the hundreds that die every day from hunger? Yep, they're offtopic, too.