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Hard drive supply is back in full force, but prices remain high
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The following comments relate to this news article:
article published on 30 May, 2012
Last year, a historical flood in Thailand left 13 million people homeless and a significant amount of factories with over 3 feet of water.
Many of those factories were used to produce hard drives and the flood led to high demand and small supply, an unfortunate situation for consumers. In April, the research firm IDC said that although supply is coming back quickly, the HDD makers are ... [ read the full article ]
Please read the original article before posting your comments.
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ivymike
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31. May 2012 @ 20:02 |
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Originally posted by djstantastic:
Originally posted by hendrix12:
Not sure where you guys get your data but i just bought a 320Gb WD Caviar Blue for $70
320Gb is a fry cry from a 2Tb
A 320 Gb Caviar Blue USED to cost $40.00 plus or minus a few bucks a year ago.
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Senior Member
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31. May 2012 @ 22:52 |
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Originally posted by stuntz0rZ:
People still use hard drives? i been using ssd for over a year now.
Stupid n00b
I too have been using an SSD for a while but if you think you are special because you are trying to brag about it then you need to get a clue. SSD technology is great but not ready for mainstream even with the higher cost of spindle drives. Maybe in a few more years it will change but until then we will have both technologies just like having both gas and electric cars. Or do you drive an electric vehicle too and think you are special because of that?
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Junior Member
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1. June 2012 @ 06:40 |
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I am glad that I stocked up on 1 tb HDD. I have 10 on hand, so the greedy wankers can wank on errr off.
There are always oem no name HDD, one can recognize the mfg. by the physical stamping on the top cover.
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AfterDawn Addict
1 product review
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1. June 2012 @ 07:21 |
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It really is a shame what their greed has done to progress. At the rate we are going, SSD might actually have a chance...it keeps progressing while disk drives stand still. The main things standing in the way right now are price (keeps coming down), and speed (you need a dedicated pcie x8 slot for the speed of a 2tb SSD...so a sata version almost seems silly). It is a bit like motor oil...crude prices went up so much that it is now the same price to use synthetic every 6000 miles as to use conventional every 3000 miles...and since synthetics offer so many improvements over normal oil, most cars just come with synthetics now. I think the same with happen for ssds if this price fixing is not dealt with. BTW...isn't price fixing illegal???
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yellowsub
Junior Member
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1. June 2012 @ 10:21 |
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Originally posted by ivymike:
Originally posted by yellowsub:
OK guys I know this is probably not what you want to hear but higher prices in the short term are good!
1- The price is just a way of transmitting information. We use that information to change our behavior so when the price goes up the people who value it the most will pay the higher prices, those who value it the least will not make purchases and those who value it but don't want to pay the increased prices will try to find substitutes.
2- The higher prices encourages production, since margins are high existing firms will try to produce more - call it greed if you like
3 - The higher profit margins will only encourage other players to enter that market which will increase the supply even more thereby further driving the price down till it reaches equilibrium.
The market is a not a perfect Utopian solution instead it's a dynamic process. Sure sometimes it sucks in the short run but that is reality.
Time for you to get your head out of your ass and smell the shit you're shoveling.
Greed is a sin and I home these companies get what's coming to them.
Greed is not a sin but thanks for the well thought out rebuttal.
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IguanaC64
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1. June 2012 @ 20:10 |
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Well...on the bright side...prices are dropping fast. I'm already seeing $99 2TB drives on sale. So calling it an example of consumer raping corporate greed is maybe a bit premature. Looking at Seagate's trends, they had a great Q3 2012, but it was pretty flat before that. They played it conservatively during the scarcity, but that means when the supply floodgates open they'll get a bump as those new drives flood the market. It should normalize soon. If it doesn't then the remaining competitors will take all their customers (of course...there are not many remaining competitors and I doubt new ones will be entering the market).
@Yellowsub - Our problem is with the definition of "greed". If the company is making huge profits that they weren't making before at the expense of the consumer with no legitimate reason for making them...that is too much greed. If they're providing a good product at a fair market price, then that is the right amount of greed. I call both versions "greed"...and "greed" is both good and bad. If you're too greedy, eventually your company will be out of business. That's not good for anyone.
@Hearme0 - This is not like oil...at least right now. Oil fluctuates as much as it does because of speculation/fear (there are other factors, but right now those are the major ones). There's little speculation in the hard drive markets. The rise in cost was due to natural disaster that directly impacted the main manufacturing facilities for all the big players. The prices are already dropping fast.
@Killerbug - I do agree with you...this has been hell on HD progress. I was hoping to be buying 4TB drives, too, by now.
@Yellowsub - No...technically greed is one of the seven deadly sins according to Christianity...so Ivymike would be correct. However, I'm no biblical scholar, but I'm sure it was intended that only excessive amounts of these traits would be considered sin because there's no way even the paragons of humanity have no measure of these "sins."
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Senior Member
1 product review
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2. June 2012 @ 11:54 |
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Originally posted by IguanaC64:
Well...on the bright side...prices are dropping fast. I'm already seeing $99 2TB drives on sale. So calling it an example of consumer raping corporate greed is maybe a bit premature.
I'm not trying to start an argument, but your observation seems a bit naive. It's just a sale at the moment & we've all seen a few of these. Just as soon as the pre/post holidays run their course those prices go right back up. "Kinda" like the gas prices do.
Which would play into hearmeo's comments, but he kinda goes off on tangents that leave me wondering at times (not that I'm anything to brag about).
But I will have to disagree with your conclusion of greed in this 'case' (with yellowsub)... Glutton-ing the market price under the auspices of regaining losses due to a natural disaster would be fine IF it weren't for the fact that these companies didn't insure the crap out of their factories for just such disasters.
They didn't 'lose' anything financially to speak of, per se'. Everybody was in the same boat; so it was the consumers that lost out on product, not the production facilities. Sure revenue was stagnate, but their stock (actual sell-able hardware) kept them afloat during rebuilding & 'the duck' paid for all that. So why the drastic price hike?
Answer: there really is none. Just like your analogy with oil; it & the HDD issue have nothing in common. Thus the prices should have never gone up.
As for the "sin" thing... Sin is a human construct. As stated before Greed is an emotion. As feces are derived from the lower intestine, so too is sin pulled from the colon of man's over productive imagination.
Simply put; Sin is the concept placed in a persons thought process to control them when no one is around to force them to conform. I.e., how do you make a man obey the law in a land where there is no law or governing body to enforce said laws?
Not that I'm trivializing 'anything', but it's like trying to define pornography. Just saying, "I know it when I see it", doesn't quite cut it.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 2. June 2012 @ 11:57
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IguanaC64
Member
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2. June 2012 @ 18:29 |
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Yeah...you could be right. I figured it was well past memorial day weekend and Best Buy is selling 2TB drives for $99 right now. We'll see how the market plays out for now.
Their factories are insured, but it still takes time to rebuild. Didn't these guys get hit by tsunamis? They got completely wiped out in the place where all the HD facilities are. This destroys the flow of cheap HD's. Supply/Demand...people want more more cheap HD's, but new ones can't be made. I see what you're saying...they didn't have to gouge the consumer, but the funny/sad part is that even if Seagate/WD didn't...all the resellers would. The business reason for it in the mfr's eyes is they'd rather slow down sales by raising prices for two reasons...#1 is, of course, more $$$ but the other is that it's not good for them to completely run out of product (they still have to warranty older drives and need something to send out and they need to have product on the shelf so that people keep seeing them around...it's not good to disappear off of retail shelves).
Yeah...I'm just making a technical point about sin and the statement that greed wasn't a sin. I'm more Buddhist in my thoughts about those things...most things are fine in moderation (you know...except things like meth and crack =).
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Interestx
Senior Member
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2. June 2012 @ 23:16 |
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Originally posted by LordRuss:
Probably back before you were born, CDs just started making their way onto the music shelves.....
You know you really ought not make these assumptions about people you don't know.
I well remember the appearance of CDs.
I recall cassette tape, before that reel-to-reel recorders and 8 track.
Originally posted by ronhondo:
It's Simple ... Don't Buy !
Correct.
If (like me) you have been fortunate enough to have been in the habit of updating your hard drives with some sort of frequency as the newer bigger sizes got cheap then you might well have a 'stock' of 1tb & 500gb HDDs that you made redundant.
My advice is dust them off, use them & wait the greedy feckers out.
That's how you force prices back down.
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Senior Member
1 product review
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3. June 2012 @ 11:26 |
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Originally posted by Interestx:
You know you really ought not make these assumptions about people you don't know.
I well remember the appearance of CDs.
I recall cassette tape, before that reel-to-reel recorders and 8 track.
Then you should have known better than to make obtuse statements allowing for people to make rash assessments of your experiences. Hitting Wikipedia for the chronology of audio technology doesn't mean you extensively grew up using & learning it. Being born in 82 & just seeing it doesn't count either.
In order to make an argumentative point, how would you propose one should do this without on occasion making assumptions? In science, assumptions are called "theory".
You're just trying to get a rise out people. I suppose "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance..."
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Interestx
Senior Member
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4. June 2012 @ 14:19 |
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Originally posted by LordRuss:
Hitting Wikipedia for the chronology of audio technology doesn't mean you extensively grew up using & learning it.
Being born in 82 & just seeing it doesn't count either.
Oh dear, still ploughing this silly forrow huh?
What got up your tail-pipe?
You have some sort of imagination at work there for sure.
For your information.....1982?
I wish.
I was born a long time before then, actually.
I used that stuff, well, ok, with the exception of 8 track, that one I did see around me, but then this is the UK & they weren't so popular here.
I (still) have several boxes with cassette tapes & fitted many a player to my cars.
OK, nosey?
I merely stated that some people might like to practice what I am doing right now.
I doubt it's too unusual for the tech minded to have replaced HDDs and to have a little stock of now unused HDDs.
I never said or implied it would be a useful idea for everyone.
But as I mentioned, people might like to think about my approach.
I went over to 2tb drives a while back & have several 1tb & 500gb drivers sitting idle.
This gives me the space to use to wait out prices returning to normal rather than be ripped off waiting on prices falling back (which they are plainly doing right now).
Sorry this little idea seems to have upset you so much.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 4. June 2012 @ 14:24
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Senior Member
1 product review
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4. June 2012 @ 14:52 |
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Originally posted by Interestx:
Sorry this little idea seems to have upset you so much.
Not at all, but merely typing the concept in the forums is grounds for implied "personal trial", unless otherwise stipulated. using the adjective "just" doesn't get you out the responsibility of using the words that follow it.
What does upset me is a defeatist's mentality. To sit idly by & passive aggressively think dusting off old machinery will suffice until the manufacturers will succumb to the longevity of the masses whims. That kind of compliance simply isn't written in the human DNA.
Eventually your hardware will break down as well & you'll be left without a HDD. I'm imagining (no assumption needed) that's what these vendors are banking on & hoping that you'll bend to 'their' whim.
Neither am I saying you take my approach & burn down their ivory towers. But a more aggressive buying initiative from a cooperative vendor who'll lower his prices (that we will all then through purchasing power) freeze out the offending companies... yeah, that could work.
No blood shed - proactive & committed. Not just another "let someone else do the work" kind of hide in the shadows & wait till the coast to clear approach to survival. That takes even longer, the manufacturers get testier & the prices go higher. None of us win.
Yes you have several HDDs. Everyone has an excuse too. At some point, be it space or power supplies, your going to run out of one or the other & the manufacturer is going to win. At what point do 'you' win over him? At what point do 'you' get the choice? Right now, none of us do.
"That's" what upsets me.
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Interestx
Senior Member
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4. June 2012 @ 15:16 |
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Originally posted by LordRuss:
What does upset me is a defeatist's mentality.
You can call it defeatist if you like but I call it realistic.
Originally posted by LordRuss:
Yes you have several HDDs. Everyone has an excuse too. At some point, be it space or power supplies, your going to run out of one or the other & the manufacturer is going to win.
I might agree with you here if it wasn';t for the fact that this is a temporary thing.
Prices are now falling.
The manufacturers are not going to win.
Some time ago I read that prices will 'normalise' (ie be back to where they were) by the end of Q3 2012.
I see nothing to dissuade me that that will not be the case.
Originally posted by LordRuss:
At what point do 'you' win over him? At what point do 'you' get the choice? Right now, none of us do.
"That's" what upsets me.
Funny as it might seem to you I am no fan of the current economic model either.
But you'd have to be willfully blind not to agree that whilst manufacturers did indeed exploit those natural disasters in SE Asia to artificially raise & maintain prices they have not been able to sustain this, and nor will they.
My little idea was simply one that more than a few could take up to help pressure prices to fall faster.
Beyond going without or making ones' own what else are people realistically expected to do in these months?
You're the one who already said you accept the burning of ivory towers isn't your suggestion......so what then?
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Junior Member
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17. June 2012 @ 08:41 |
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Bought 6 WD drives in Sept 2011 and all six were defective. There after I created 32 RMA's and received 31 defective replacements. It's been almost a year now and for my expenditure of nearly $700 to purchase and $450 in postage I still only have one working drive. Don't even waste your time with WD RMA's their replacement drives are junk.
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Senior Member
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17. June 2012 @ 16:06 |
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Originally posted by gilboa:
Bought 6 WD drives in Sept 2011 and all six were defective. There after I created 32 RMA's and received 31 defective replacements. It's been almost a year now and for my expenditure of nearly $700 to purchase and $450 in postage I still only have one working drive. Don't even waste your time with WD RMA's their replacement drives are junk.
Wow.. I have never experienced that in my 20 years of purchasing and having to RMA hard drives. You must have the worst luck in the world or you are making this up.
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Senior Member
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18. June 2012 @ 15:25 |
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Originally posted by bobiroc:
Originally posted by gilboa:
Bought 6 WD drives in Sept 2011 and all six were defective. There after I created 32 RMA's and received 31 defective replacements. It's been almost a year now and for my expenditure of nearly $700 to purchase and $450 in postage I still only have one working drive. Don't even waste your time with WD RMA's their replacement drives are junk.
Wow.. I have never experienced that in my 20 years of purchasing and having to RMA hard drives. You must have the worst luck in the world or you are making this up.
That or the whole crate got dropped & only one drive survived the landing. I've basically 'had it' with WD's RMA plan as well & hope to never replace a drive either. I'm sure it's whay they went from the 5 to 3 year return policy as well.
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Junior Member
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18. June 2012 @ 16:13 |
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Originally posted by LordRuss:
Originally posted by bobiroc:
Originally posted by gilboa:
Bought 6 WD drives in Sept 2011 and all six were defective. There after I created 32 RMA's and received 31 defective replacements. It's been almost a year now and for my expenditure of nearly $700 to purchase and $450 in postage I still only have one working drive. Don't even waste your time with WD RMA's their replacement drives are junk.
Wow.. I have never experienced that in my 20 years of purchasing and having to RMA hard drives. You must have the worst luck in the world or you are making this up.
That or the whole crate got dropped & only one drive survived the landing. I've basically 'had it' with WD's RMA plan as well & hope to never replace a drive either. I'm sure it's whay they went from the 5 to 3 year return policy as well.
How about the way shippers handle the drives with a 5' drop rule.
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Junior Member
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18. June 2012 @ 16:17 |
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Originally posted by gilboa:
Originally posted by LordRuss:
Originally posted by bobiroc:
Originally posted by gilboa:
Bought 6 WD drives in Sept 2011 and all six were defective. There after I created 32 RMA's and received 31 defective replacements. It's been almost a year now and for my expenditure of nearly $700 to purchase and $450 in postage I still only have one working drive. Don't even waste your time with WD RMA's their replacement drives are junk.
Wow.. I have never experienced that in my 20 years of purchasing and having to RMA hard drives. You must have the worst luck in the world or you are making this up.
That or the whole crate got dropped & only one drive survived the landing. I've basically 'had it' with WD's RMA plan as well & hope to never replace a drive either. I'm sure it's whay they went from the 5 to 3 year return policy as well.
How about the way shippers handle the drives with a 5' drop rule.
RMA rerplacement drives have been shipped maybe as much as ten times.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 18. June 2012 @ 16:23
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Senior Member
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19. June 2012 @ 13:59 |
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Originally posted by gilboa:
Originally posted by LordRuss:
That or the whole crate got dropped & only one drive survived the landing. I've basically 'had it' with WD's RMA plan as well & hope to never replace a drive either. I'm sure it's whay they went from the 5 to 3 year return policy as well.
How about the way shippers handle the drives with a 5' drop rule.
Not 'exactly' what I meant. I speaking in regards to holding onto credit card funds until they get their HDD back. Not sending you a HDD until they get a HDD from you (in certain circumstances). The customer footing the shipping ALL the time, for both drives, broke & replacement.
Seagate, IBM & most assuredly Samsung have behaved a little bit better about customer service than this. Granted, this is no reflection on HDD quality. But sometimes it really is after the sale that you should be thinking about.
That's 'kinda' where I was going.
I've just been r e a l l y working hard at trying to kill this 'wordy bitch' thing, but it doesn't seem to be working out all that well.
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