Author Topic: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?  (Read 2517 times)

Offline Krusty

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So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« on: January 20, 2012, 09:10:36 AM »
When are these silly HDD prices predicted to return to normal? The prices at 2x normal are ridiculous. I may need one soon, but will hold off until the prices drop. I'm just wondering how long that might be.

Offline Debrody

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2012, 09:28:04 AM »
Dont tell me...
our inflation got out of control. One Euro was 240 HuF 6 months ago, now its around 320, even was 330 a couple weeks ago.
The machine i built for 140K Huf ~ 700 Bux in May cant be built from 220K ~ 1100 Bux now. A dam 1TB winchester costs 180-200 Bux...
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Offline Bizman

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2012, 10:16:33 AM »
When are these silly HDD prices predicted to return to normal? The prices at 2x normal are ridiculous. I may need one soon, but will hold off until the prices drop. I'm just wondering how long that might be.
Take a towel and help the manufacturers dry their machines. There's only about 5 feet of it...





Offline Krusty

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2012, 04:30:40 PM »
That's from October. The water is gone. It was a temporary slowdown, and I understand the supply of resources to other manufacturers (like HDD makers) isn't the fastest to react and recover, but really? I question the price raise. It smacks to me of opportunism on the makers' part. Surely they can restore their production lines in 5 months' time? Or source alternative? They can't be waiting for daily shipments, and building in bulk they MUST have had supplies stored up to at least some degree.

Seems the prices went up out of fear of disruption rather than actual disruption. Is this the stock market or an actual object? I mean, either they're not getting the controller chips, or they are. If they're making the drives it means they are, and prices should drop, right? If they're NOT making the drives -- well then the price of drives built BEFORE this event and stored in warehouses waiting to be sold shouldn't go up, right?

Regardless of these hypotheticals and random thoughts on my part... I'm looking for when it drops back to normal. Next quarter? 6 months? Next year?

Offline SectorNine50

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2012, 05:13:32 PM »
That's from October. The water is gone. It was a temporary slowdown, and I understand the supply of resources to other manufacturers (like HDD makers) isn't the fastest to react and recover, but really? I question the price raise. It smacks to me of opportunism on the makers' part. Surely they can restore their production lines in 5 months' time? Or source alternative? They can't be waiting for daily shipments, and building in bulk they MUST have had supplies stored up to at least some degree.

Seems the prices went up out of fear of disruption rather than actual disruption. Is this the stock market or an actual object? I mean, either they're not getting the controller chips, or they are. If they're making the drives it means they are, and prices should drop, right? If they're NOT making the drives -- well then the price of drives built BEFORE this event and stored in warehouses waiting to be sold shouldn't go up, right?

Regardless of these hypotheticals and random thoughts on my part... I'm looking for when it drops back to normal. Next quarter? 6 months? Next year?

It's really difficult to say.  I read that the HDD manufacturers wanted OEM's to sign contracts that locked in current prices for several years, which is fairly sleazy, and might be a sign that they will try to milk as much as they can out of this situation.

Unfortunately, the 3.5" (Toshiba is still making 2.5" drives) HDD market is now a duopoly, with Western Digital and Seagate, now that Seagate has purchased Samsung.  They are really in a good position to bend us over now that prices are comfortably (for them) high.  Although, I guess we do have to keep in mind that they have to rebuild their infrastructure again, which probably requires a lot of capital.

The good news is, SSD technology is advancing rapidly as well as competition within the SSD market.  However, it will still be a LONG while before we see equivalent capacity SSDs at a reasonable price...
« Last Edit: January 20, 2012, 05:18:30 PM by SectorNine50 »
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Offline guncrasher

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2012, 05:16:54 PM »
they predicted during the summer prices will go down.  I went to bestbuy the other day and they have cheaper prices on some models inside the store.  dont bother to check with their ownline site as the prices are higher.  but if you need one right away I would go to the local stores and compare prices first.  I need to get a couple to do raid, but I have more time than money, actually i am willing to spend more time than money as I dont really need to do raid as I have plenty of space.

just read sectornine50 posting as i press "post" on mine.  forgot i have been looking at the prices for the ssd/velociraptor and they seem to have gone down in price a bit.  that is always another option.

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Offline Krusty

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2012, 05:30:15 PM »
WD bought Samsung? Interesting... I was thinking of those Samsung 1TB drives (4 of them in RAID 1+0) for a 2GB fast drive. Well, now I can at least know those particular drives won't be coming down for a little while. I thought "Oh, Samsung, they're not affected by that flood as much as ones located there!" but apparently that's not the case if their parent company was!

Offline SectorNine50

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2012, 05:37:54 PM »
WD bought Samsung? Interesting... I was thinking of those Samsung 1TB drives (4 of them in RAID 1+0) for a 2GB fast drive. Well, now I can at least know those particular drives won't be coming down for a little while. I thought "Oh, Samsung, they're not affected by that flood as much as ones located there!" but apparently that's not the case if their parent company was!

It's Seagate that bought Samsung (just their HDD division), but same idea.  It sucks seeing HDD "sales" that are still above the price they used to be before the flooding...  :frown:
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Offline Krusty

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2012, 05:54:11 PM »
my bad, yes, seagate. It's right there in your post. I had a few windows open and made a slip because of a WD article.

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Offline Bizman

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #9 on: January 21, 2012, 02:54:57 AM »
On today's paper several PC dealers predicted a raise in computer prices in a couple of months, because the old cheaper stock items are running out. The delivery times of dedicated professional computers have doubled, from 3 to 6 weeks. They estimated the high prices would come down during this year. The worst peak has fortunately been and gone, but the prices will still remain high until the production is stable again. There's still demand for double the amount of hard disks available and produced, so they must reduce demand. Semp, you're a perfect example how that works!  :)

Krusty, you are right, those WD pictures are from October. But remember, it isn't just the factory floors that have a slight moisture defect, or the machinery, or the stock of components. The roads and rails have suffered, too, and have to be rebuilt to be able to carry heavy loads. The rebuild costs have to be covered, too, although I guess the insurance companies at least partially pay the bill for the factories, and the Thai government will take care of public transport ways. Also, there's much more than just some industrial areas damaged by the flood, the repairing of which isn't cheap.

And the water isn't gone, here's what it looked like a fortnight ago:

« Last Edit: January 21, 2012, 02:56:34 AM by Bizman »

Offline Masherbrum

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2012, 01:30:44 PM »
They will not come down this year, let alone "in the summer".    Western Digital has started Partial Production which was ahead of schedule.


The Seagate CEO Stephen J. Luczo has said: "It will be the end of 2012 before 'full production' resumes.   It will be even longer than that, to reach 'pre-flood pricing'."

Stephen also praised it's competitor WD, for resuming the partial production.  
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Offline Bino

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #11 on: January 22, 2012, 05:54:18 AM »
They will not come down this year, let alone "in the summer".    Western Digital has started Partial Production which was ahead of schedule.

The Seagate CEO Stephen J. Luczo has said: "It will be the end of 2012 before 'full production' resumes.   It will be even longer than that, to reach 'pre-flood pricing'."

Stephen also praised it's competitor WD, for resuming the partial production.  

This agrees with what I've read:  Supplies of hard drives for system makers are expected to be around 25% to 35% below demand, so retail prices will remain high, probably for the rest of 2012. 



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Offline Bizman

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2012, 09:28:12 AM »
Highly agreed. As a matter of fact, if your family members need a surfboard, now is the time to get one before the lack of HDD's really hits. Of course this doesn't apply to gaming rigs, our needs are totally different to our spouses'.

Offline Tigger29

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2012, 01:24:08 PM »
My GF's computer needed a new hard drive after hers started to intermittently crash.  Rather than buying one I ended up cannibalizing an external "DVR Expander" drive I had sitting around collecting dust.  I only used it about 2 months before I switch my cable service and it was shelved after I realized it wasn't compatible with the new DVR.

Anyway I took it apart and it had a 3.5" WD Green 500GB drive inside.  I partitioned it and ghosted her old drive over to it and it's been working great for her for a few weeks now!

I think we'll be seeing a lot more of this sort of thing until drive prices stabilize, that's for sure!

Offline TequilaChaser

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Re: So... When are these HDD prices supposed to come down again?
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2012, 02:46:49 PM »
Tigger,
that reminds me of the thread I started/posted a lil while back regarding buying the cheaper external USB Hard Drives instead of the currently more expensive Internal HD's.......

Topic: Cheap Alternative for Hard Drive Purchasing 
http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,324759.0.html

with the recent price increase on most all Hard Drives, I may have a cheaper alternative for those wanting or needing to purchase a  1TB ~ 3 TB  SATA III 6.0 GBs  internal HD

Newegg is running sales on External Hard Drivesfor most Brands/Manufacturers, to where the enclosed/included HD is the same as their Internal HD cousin, yet the cost is only 1/2 or even 1/3rd of what the Internal HD is costing verses what the External USB 3.0 ( SATA III 5.0/6.0 GBs speed ) version costs

example:

Hitachi Internal 2TB 7200 rpm 64 mb cache  SATA III  6.0 GBs  Hard Drive oem  =  $249.99  + $7.28 shipping

newegg link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145473 

( edit: there is a possibility they might use this HD in the below External USB 3.0 HD enclosure, it is a toss up of which one you might get ??? )

cheaper internal Hitachi 2TB HD link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475   HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

$179.99 + $7.28 shipping ............ but you still will save nearly 1/2 buy purchasing the external model


compared to its External cousin


HITACHI Touro Desk Pro 2TB USB 3.0 ( ='s SATA III 5.0/6.0 GBs speed )  Black External Hard Drive  = $99.99 with Free Shipping

newegg link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145509&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-22-145-509-_-Product

this figures out to be  257.27 - 99.99 = a savings of $ 157.28  by going this route, plus the added bonus of a USB 3.0 External HD enclousre


You can remove the 2TB Hitachi HD from the external enclosure and install it in your computer, and still have the use of the USB 3.0 External Housing ( which is backwards compatible 3.0 ~ 2.0 ) for any other Hard Drives you might have laying around

just an alternative suggestion, that can save you money and also get yourself an External HD enclosure

hope this is of some use for someone

cheers

TC

I have not checked any pricing since the 1st of the year............ but have noticed that newegg still posts some external HD's in their "Daily deals" every so often......

Also, it seems that their are alot of "Remanufactured"  HDs  being advertised as of late.......


TC
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