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  1. #1

    Do the Thailand Earthquake affect hard drive prices now in 2012?

    I have been recently getting some quotes for dedicated servers and some of the prices are ridiculous and blaming the thailand tragedy for the prices of hard drives, is this a valid excuse?

    In reality the rrp of retail hard drives are still expensive

    Shouldnt these comapnies not be looking at the wholesale/distribution prices?

    Is this excuse still valid or are they just milking what they can get?

  2. #2
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    Of course. Drives increased allot, specially the Western Digital ones.

    Do you think wholesale stores and distributors have not increased their prices? There is a shortage and its normal to increase prices if there is a demand but stock is low.

    Its not an excuse, if their hardware costs more, then the server costs more. So they need to pass this on to clients. And you can expect it to increase even more. We may see normal HDD prices by the end of 2012 (as before the flood), so server prices would be back normal by 2013.

    Read here for example:
    http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1091576

    And it wasnt an earthquake. It was a flood.

    You can google pictures of Western Digital factory under water.
    Last edited by nibb; 02-29-2012 at 04:42 PM.

  3. #3
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    WD predicts that supply constraints will “continue in the March quarter and beyond”. Meaning of course that if the demand is outstripping supply then prices will either hold steady at best and more likely rise for end buyers. Though WD did not provide any specifics on when hard drive production supply will eventually catch up to demand, based on the statement they issued it won’t be any earlier than the middle of 2012.
    http://www.storagereview.com/western...market_effects

    Check back in Q2/3 2012. Prices might have reduced a bit by then.

  4. #4
    its not the reduction/increase

    its the fact that many of these providers have say ~100 eu difference in price for the same setup of server and they blame it on the hdd increase O.o

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by breeeville View Post
    its not the reduction/increase

    its the fact that many of these providers have say ~100 eu difference in price for the same setup of server and they blame it on the hdd increase O.o
    The highest increase I would expect would be 80EUR.

  6. #6
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    It depends on the configs of course. If you're wanting 2TB HDDs, good luck finding non-green HDDs. Most places either don't have them, or they list a 2-3 week lead time.
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  7. #7
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    WD are back up and running in thailand (I've just recieved 16 drives all Manufactured in late January), but are at much reduced capacity. They dont expect to be back at full capacity until the end of the year.

    IMO its unlikely we will see drives go back to the same prices they were before, though they may drop little more as stock increases. If you dont need masses of space, its a good excuse to go down the SSD route.

  8. #8
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    Yes prices of these drives were effected by the flood but at this point it's just price gouging. The industry (not saying server hosts) will try to keep these prices as high and as long as possible.

  9. #9
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    still shortage and still expensive hards in the market. Affect setup time, dedicated servers price, mood...
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  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by ShyGuy82 View Post
    Yes prices of these drives were effected by the flood but at this point it's just price gouging. The industry (not saying server hosts) will try to keep these prices as high and as long as possible.
    It's called the market-clearing price, not price gouging. If you're already selling everything you can manufacture, and there's more demand, you raise prices to meet demand. What good is it for drives to cost $100 if you can't actually get one? If prices have to be $200 in order for demand to drop enough so that the supply meets the demand, that's what the price should be. Even if the price used to be $100, that's not price gouging, it's the appropriate price for the product.

    Server hosts also try to keep their prices as high as possible as long as possible as well. Nobody lowers their prices simply because they're charitable. You do it because you have to in order to compete, and you will only do it if you can still turn a profit at the lower price.
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  11. #11
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    I am in Asia but I do not see there have any effect in the Harddrive market.
    Price still drop because new model and capacity

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by funkywizard View Post
    It's called the market-clearing price, not price gouging. If you're already selling everything you can manufacture, and there's more demand, you raise prices to meet demand. What good is it for drives to cost $100 if you can't actually get one? If prices have to be $200 in order for demand to drop enough so that the supply meets the demand, that's what the price should be. Even if the price used to be $100, that's not price gouging, it's the appropriate price for the product.

    Server hosts also try to keep their prices as high as possible as long as possible as well. Nobody lowers their prices simply because they're charitable. You do it because you have to in order to compete, and you will only do it if you can still turn a profit at the lower price.
    It's still price gouging. They will keep their facilities produce less, make more. That's why you will not see prices drop until at least end of 2012.

    The demand will not drop. Sure, home users could wait for pricing to drop a bit but others like computer/server manufacturers, web hosts etc will still buy, no matter what the price is. Btw, I've read on many forums "regular joe blows" are discussing the price and most of them say: "Well, I think I should be good for now, I have a RAID-10 12TB box and it's 80% full". Besides movies, what else can these people have on those boxes? lol. And they brag about it. Anyways, this is outside the topic but still meh...

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by breeeville View Post
    I have been recently getting some quotes for dedicated servers and some of the prices are ridiculous and blaming the thailand tragedy for the prices of hard drives, is this a valid excuse?

    In reality the rrp of retail hard drives are still expensive

    Shouldnt these comapnies not be looking at the wholesale/distribution prices?

    Is this excuse still valid or are they just milking what they can get?
    Unfortunately it's still "valid". I get my hardware from a warehouse for wholesale/distribution to OEM companies as I am a repair tech and the prices they pay for their items have soared by at least 200%. They even asked me if I had any extra drives they they could buy from me at 150% markup.

    I don't understand why all the other hard drive manufacturers are joining in the markup as the only name I have ever found was Western Digital being affected. I'm still skeptical of why everyone is joining this bandwagon.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by aeoio View Post
    I am in Asia but I do not see there have any effect in the Harddrive market.
    Price still drop because new model and capacity
    How much for a 3TB seagate barracuda?

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by ShyGuy82 View Post
    It's still price gouging. They will keep their facilities produce less, make more. That's why you will not see prices drop until at least end of 2012.

    The demand will not drop. Sure, home users could wait for pricing to drop a bit but others like computer/server manufacturers, web hosts etc will still buy, no matter what the price is. Btw, I've read on many forums "regular joe blows" are discussing the price and most of them say: "Well, I think I should be good for now, I have a RAID-10 12TB box and it's 80% full". Besides movies, what else can these people have on those boxes? lol. And they brag about it. Anyways, this is outside the topic but still meh...
    It's still not price gouging. Just because the price used to be lower, and now it is higher, does not make the current price "too high". Maybe the previous price was "too low", as prices that low required the manufacturers to rely too heavily on a single source for parts, or locate in a part of the world that was prone to flooding. The consumer demand for constantly lower prices has caused the companies to make decisions in order to compete and stay profitable, that ultimately led to this mess in the first place.

    If the industry as a whole has lost a huge percentage of its capacity, why on earth could you argue that prices should not go up? If I can only produce 20% of the hard drives I used to produce, but I can charge 3x the price, I've still lost 40% of my revenue, and I want to get that capacity back as quickly as possible. If you tell me to just eat it, and charge the same price as before, now I've lost 80% of my revenue, and I might just go out of business. What will that do for hard drive prices, if the largest manufacturer just goes out of business and you lose 50% of the industry's capacity permanently? You suck it up and pay what it costs until the price comes down, or you don't buy hard drives. When prices are low, people will buy 4 hard drives when they might only need 2, or might buy 2 when they only need 1. Why not? If the price is high, people will keep a closer eye on making sure they only buy what they need, which means that other people can get drives that they need. If you keep the price artificially low, then everyone wants all the same number of drives as before, but nobody can buy them. How does that do anyone any good?
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  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by savigejr View Post
    How much for a 3TB seagate barracuda?
    Seagate ST31000524AS ~us$109

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by aeoio View Post
    Seagate ST31000524AS ~us$109
    That's a 1TB drive.

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