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 has led to a industry that has huge demand and small supply equaling bad news for consumers. In fact, over a few months, average prices on HDDs rose 47 percent, taking Western Digital's ... [ read the full article ]
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There are MUCH better ways of staying out of a higher tax bracket.
Be careful, though. You might be accused of being rich and not paying your "fair share"!
I am surprised that so many readers feel that their buying or not buying of drives is going to make any difference to the manufacturers. The OEMs are the bread and butter for all of them. You and me are the caviar on the crackers. The prices will remain high only if there is some sort of price fixing already in place. It would not surprise me at all. We have a saying in Indiua for such people - Corporations are people, right ! - "Paiso Parameshwar" - literal meaning : "Money is THE almighty God". I guess this is true world wide.
The rate at which quite a few laptop users are shifting to tablets - with SSDs - soon there the supply will exceed demand and the prices will sky dive.
Love you Western Digital. But your prices are outrageous. So I wait. Other than the 2 velociraptors, you've had a clean track record. 13 terabytes will have to do for now ^_^ Just keep in mind, that quality control comes first. NOT mass production! I imagine most people go by the DOA rate, or longevity reviews ;)