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Avoid Hard Drive purchases for at least 1/2 a year
14 years ago
General
Flooding in Thailand has ruined literally HALF of the factories and suppliers which make all of the hard drives on Earth. So the price of drives has tripled in only 1 month and is likely to top off at 5X the prices you paid just 2 months ago. That 1TB drive you wanted for Xmas for 99$? It's now 300$. And by Feb it is likely to be around 500$.
And the prices for prebuilt computers will likewise shoot up a couple hundred bucks each as well.
This situation will continue until the drive manufacturers and parts suppliers replace critical machines and recalibrate their factories and are running smooth once more and there are once again more drives to go around than demand. But right now, drives are already getting scarce. And by early next year you won't be able to buy much -- the big computer makers will take nearly all the production.
And the prices for prebuilt computers will likewise shoot up a couple hundred bucks each as well.
This situation will continue until the drive manufacturers and parts suppliers replace critical machines and recalibrate their factories and are running smooth once more and there are once again more drives to go around than demand. But right now, drives are already getting scarce. And by early next year you won't be able to buy much -- the big computer makers will take nearly all the production.
Those prices remind me of what I had to throw down for much smaller capacity HDs back in the late 80s/early 90s. Very much smaller, 200Mb for example.