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Hard Drive Prices

MatthewL

By MatthewL
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sted

sted

Posted
Posted (edited)

looks like pc worls are still fairly cheap 500gb wd scorpio blue £70 nearly 100 more at ccl

 

looks like a trip to wakefield on the way home for me lol either that or pay the silly cost of parking in leeds city centre

Edited by sted
Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted
I expect this to have a big impact on the already fragile economic situation

It's not looking good...

 

WD in Thailand are the biggest foreign employer in Thailand with around 40,000 workers.

 

WD, Toshiba etc. have a lot of production facilities in and around Ayuttaya and Pathum Thani which have been severely affected. The main highway to Ayuttaya is only just now beginning to be passable again for larger vehicles, this may be a month after flooding hit. I'm nearer to Bangkok (not far from a Lite-On parts manufacturer) and the water is still rising slightly where I live. Water level there today is about 1.2 mts which might not sound a lot but try walking a few kms in it...

 

Had to evacuate a few days ago while we could still get out, rising dirty water, shops closed, no food or water, anyway, most people had left already. If anyone here has used the former Don Mueang Airport when travelling to Thailand, it is now 90% under water and the highway in front virtually impassable for a long way other than for boats.

 

To give you an idea of how bad the effect on industry is, Honda, Nikon and Sony factories have been deemed unrecoverable, all car production across Thailand is still suspended I believe. The industrial estates were to be protected at all costs but the floodwaters could not be stopped so at least half a dozen estates are now submerged, thousands of parts suppliers affected. I saw on NHK tv an exec from Sony I think, who said they believed the assurances given that they would be protected so didn't move machinery to higher floors.

 

If the worst that happens is you pay higher prices for hard disks then you're doing well. Some of the scenes around where I live were like Dunkirk, it has really been that bad. Apart from flash flooding that is usually over in a few hours I've never seen anything like it around here before. Stagnant water that may takes weeks to drain, a hot climate, rubbish floating everywhere, it's a bad situation and not over yet. (Source)

Brucy

Brucy

Posted
Posted
I'm still smarting from paying a ton over the odds for a pair of drives. They were £50 the other week.

 

Still, a drive in the hand.... gathers no moss.

 

I am (was) in the same, got the server then almost couldn't afford the drives. Still annoyed at having to pay £30 more than I thought I would. I found mine on Misco, they were the cheapest but now don't even have any internal drives listed!

m25man

m25man

Posted
Posted (edited)
Normally panic buying is fuelled by rumour and hype, but in this case I suggest that we all panic.

 

To add fuel to this fire, I have just had "Force Majure Notices" from Leading manufacturers advising that they will be unable to fulfill orders until well into the 2nd quarter of next year!

 

Clearly this could escalate and affect warranty components so all of you SAN owners out there start crossing your fingers as it looks like a bumpy ride ahead!

Edited by m25man
m25man

m25man

Posted
Posted

Unfortunately most of the Firesale items still around at the usual places are not going to help much if your iSCSI SAN blows a couple of drives and the Manufacturer hasn't got any to replace them with under warranty!

 

This Force Majure situation is likely to be used by all and sundry to get themselves out of the doggy do when things start to get a bit dodgy.

 

One Manufacturer has stopped shipments of all disk based storage devices for at least a week whilst they see what happens but they are not hopeful for the future.

 

SAN, NAS & DAS devices are going to dry up pretty quickly I think as manufacturers will be wanting to hoard warranty spares to tide them over. If that means storing a few chassis to release the dozen or so HDD's contained therein for spares use then that what they will do.

 

If you had plans to increase you storage farm this year or build a new VM Cluster nows the time for a rethink as I doubt the budget will have a contingency for the price increases we are likely to have to endure for the next 6 months at least.

sidewinder

sidewinder

Posted
Posted
Both from a personal (putting off buying a new laptop drive and my nas server) and work viewpoint (thinking of implementing NAS server for offsite backup) - balls. Probably isn't going to be great for the next few months. Then again, compared to what half of Thailand is putting up with at the minute, a shortage of hard disks seems trivial
localzuk

localzuk

Posted
Posted
Thank *insert deity here* we have a warranty on our DAS array! Just had a 3.5" 1TB SAS drive die on us in it. I'd hate to have to source one to buy, I'd probably drain the school bank account if I had to do that!
m25man

m25man

Posted
Posted
Thank *insert deity here* we have a warranty on our DAS array! Just had a 3.5" 1TB SAS drive die on us in it. I'd hate to have to source one to buy, I'd probably drain the school bank account if I had to do that!

 

This is what will catch people out, once invoked the "Force Maejure" will effectively render your warranty useless.

Lost in the small print of the 15 pages of warranty information that none of us ever read will be a clause...

Basically if the Vendor cant find you a replacement you will be left to fend for yourself until they can replace it. You will have no grounds for complaint or claim for loss or disruption to business.

 

Now be worried....

SYNACK

SYNACK

Posted
Posted
Not sure what seagates version of the green drives are like but I know the WD green drives are a big no no as they keep dieing etc

 

Seagates ones are better, still not quick but efficient. I have a 2TB one which has been going nicely for quite a while. WD stands for What Data.

  • Thanks 1
sted

sted

Posted
Posted
Seagates ones are better, still not quick but efficient. I have a 2TB one which has been going nicely for quite a while. WD stands for What Data.

Ive personally lost more Seagate drives than wd

SYNACK

SYNACK

Posted
Posted
Ive personally lost more Seagate drives than wd

 

As I have said before in other thread hard drives are all the same in the sence that they are all rubbish and fail, they will all fail and it is often up to what batches you get when and from what supply channel as well as how many of each drives you have as to how many fail. We have about even numbers of WD and Seagate bundled with machines and there is about a ten to one failure ratio between the WDs and the Seagates. Others will have different failure rates obviously but my own experiences with WD have not been favorable.

Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted

Update from Seagate...

 

In a filing with the SEC yesterday, Seagate provided an update on their view of the hard drive shortage. Seagate confirmed their 180 million unconstrained demand number for hard drives in the fourth quarter of this year, and estimates the market will be able to deliver 110-120 million units of that demand. Of that Seagate expects to ship 41 - 45 million units, which is the lower middle of their 40-50 million broad estimate provided on their last quarterly call.

 

The good news is that if Seagate is able to get access to key components that are still not in full supply, they expect to be able to deliver 60 million units in the first quarter of 2012. Things could be back to normal for Seagate by mid-year as they ramp up production, integrate with Samsung and their production catches up to pent up demand that isn't being fulfilled now.

 

Western Digital has not updated their guidance on the issues associated with the Thailand flooding. (Source)

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