Hard Disk Drive Shortage May Persist Through 2013
There is quite a bit of confusing speculation about how long the computer industry will have to deal with the shortage of hard drives caused by the Thailand flood.
IHS, for example, believes that the situation will gradually improve beginning in Q1 2012 and could even result in excess supply as the currently added production of HDDs outside of Thailand is added to the production ramp as fabs in the country return to full production capability.
However, there are much more pessimistic analysts, such as John Rydning from IDC, which believe that the impact will be felt into 2013.
"I think the most painful period will occur now through February of next year," Rydning said in a quote published by Computerworld. "We expect the situation will improve, but it won't feel as if things are back to normal until 2013. "Rydning believes that HDD makers will eb able to meet "immediate demand" in the second half of 2012.
However, for now, the shortage is already forcing computer buyers to buy what is available and not what they want. Computerworld quotes Lenovo stating that some buyers will have to settle for off-spec HDDs in its products. Computerworld said that 750 GB, 320 GB, 250 GB and 160 GB drives are unavailable for some Thinkpad notebooks. Western Digital, which was hardest hit by the flood, recently said that it has restarted its hard drive production in one of its buildings, while all other facilities "remain under approximately two feet of water."
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Feel sorry for all those people who lost their lives in these floods, especially when I saw the chaos down a local store that had a few external drives for sale, and couldn't meet demand. It was a near riot, with many irate customers demanding answers as to why the (very limited) stock had ran out 5 minutes after opening. I felt sorry for the staff too;it was way beyond their control and all they could do was apologize for the shortage.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't AMD recently talking about ending Phenom II production?
In view of the floods I don't think that's a good idea. No doubt everyone from suppliers to end users are feeling more than just a pinch so to speak, and AMD can compete very well on it's price. So if you could recoup the loss this way then I think that would swing in AMD's favour even if it's note entirely to AMD's liking.
So in the consumer desktop arena at least, I don't think this is a good time to kiss Phenom II goodbye; if anything I'd keep it alive and maximise on the cost-per-core ration these chips offer compared to the competition. If you're prepared to dabble with core unlocking and/or overlocking, that's even more money saved. I don't see Bulldozer (along with the added hardware overheads like board and potentially memory), as being a big enough incentive to upgrade - especially for gamers.
I doubt AMD would welcome that stance and would rather people go with Bulldozer, but whether they can afford to upgrade or even wish to is another matter..
What do you think.. Has the hard drive shortage caught you unawares? It has me.
I do feel sorry for suppliers and computer stores. There isn't much you can do. Here in NZ a 2tb green disk is now $220.
However, It does make you wonder... why did the two major players stick all their eggs in once basket? I.E, the same country...
If Thailand had another government issue etc, we could have the same issue.
*one basket
Dammit...
Pretty sucky news to be honest. I was hoping to go massive HDD's in 2012, but if these issues persist...
as a reseller of storage products ( www.span.com) weve seen first hand the impact this has had on sales, stock and pricing. I wouldnt be at all surprised to see some businesses go under because of the shortages i know certainly its a tough time for us at the moment having to chase around each day looking for stock at prices that wont scare the customers off and thats one the big problems with rises of as much as 200% and people ourselves included having no idea whether each day prices will go up or come down.