# Hard drive prices ! Whats going on ?



## jamesd1981

Has anyone else noticed the huge jump in price of brand new hard drives in the last few days on sites like ebuyer, scan etc.

only a couple of weeks ago i bought a new seagate barracuda 2tb sata 3 hard drive and it only cost £60, on browsing ebuyer the other day the cheapest sata 3 hard drive was £70 for a small 320gb barracuda.

after then browsing all standards of hard drive this seems to be the case across all of them, why such a huge increase, i can understand due to recent troubles maybe a bit of a rise but surely that level of jump can not be justified ?

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?sort=pricelow&store=33&cat=392&filtersubcat=3265&limit=10&page=1


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## strollin

Not really new news, widespread flooding in Thailand has shutdown several HDD manufacturing plants as well as component suppliers.


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## jamesd1981

This is probably the excuse they have been looking for, now that the prices have gone up you wont ever get them back down even when things return to normal, thats how it always works.


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## Okedokey

Yeah, however the above relies on price fixing/collusion, which is very detectable and illegal.  Someone will always undercut.  This example is simply supply and demand.


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## Shane

£70 for a Western Digital 250Gb 16mb cache...they must be crazy if they think people will pay this kind of money.


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## jamesd1981

Do you think the price of used hard drives i.e. ebay etc will go up, or could used hard drives turn into a real money saver ?


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## JHM

bye


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## johnb35

What do you think of this...  maybe because more users are getting SSD drives instead of regular hdd's now?


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## linkin

Glad I don't need to buy a HDD now.


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## jamesd1981

johnb35 said:


> What do you think of this...  maybe because more users are getting SSD drives instead of regular hdd's now?




It could be john, actually on looking at it so far the price of the solid state drives have stayed the same and maybe actually a bit lower 

I bought a 60gb ocz vertex about a year ago and it was around £100, but on the same site again ebuyer, you can now get one as cheap as £60

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?sort=pricelow&store=33&cat=385&limit=10&page=1

It could be this will cause a real rise in the amount of people buying ssd`s, especially if they already have a large hdd for file storage


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## JHM

bye


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## claptonman

I paid $58 for the 64mb version a month ago...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136283


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## PohTayToez

I was wondering WTF was up.

I normally buy 320GB 2.5" SATA drives all the time at $50-$60 for a WD Blue.  Now they're like $80-$90 and the only hard drives that are lower have bad reviews.


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## JHM

bye


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## Intel_man

Yup Thailand got flooded.

http://forums.ncix.com/forums/?mode...did=2421459&pagenumber=0&msgcount=0&subpage=1


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## Aastii

12th October, bought a WD Caviar Blue 500GB for a customer for £25.82

If I were to buy the same drive today - £87 

So glad I'm not in the market for a hard drive right now. It does, however, pretty much stop all system building jobs because no bugger will pay that much for a relatively weak system (given the price) because the hard drive is pushing up the total so damn much


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## BurningSkyline

This makes me wish that they would lower SSD prices.


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## Gareth

I was thinking about swapping out this 250GB hard drive in my laptop for a 500GB 7200rpm.... Ill put that plan on hold then!


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## DMGrier

If I do anything anymore it is going to be with the SSD, Had one in my Dell mini 9 and if you read what the perks are to them HDD is a downgrade. Thinking about putting a SSD in my Vaio.  

I am going to say the flood and not to mention the holidays are coming up and it is a bad time time to fall behind production.


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## CrazyMike

I see it as an economy thing. Like anything in the economy, prices will always rise and fall. I would guess that in the future the prices of HDD will come down, but still have a higher price tag then before. SSD prices will fall as technology advances. If both of these happens, the price of HDD will fall dramatically lower than prices before hand. None of which will happen for a while. In the short future, i see the price of HDD will drop from current prices, but not by much.


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## claptonman

The economy didn't make hard drives jump twice as much in prices. Something had to happen to make them jump, and it was the flood.


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## User0one

Just bought a Western Digital 2TB drive for $95.00. Seems to be about what I paid a year ago for the same drive.


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## 4NGU$

not amused about this :/ this is the only thing that is pushing my new build over budget 
probably just going to get a small (60-80gb) SSD and keep using my External drive until this calms down


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## jamesd1981

Thats the problem, it probably wont calm down, it doesn`t matter if there was a genuine reason for the jump, it will be just like,fuel, energy etc, once the price goes up it never goes back down by any significant amount.


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## BlueDogAnchorite

http://www.ebuyer.com/173804-samsun...-hard-drive-sataii-7200rpm-32mb-cache-hd103sj

What are you talking about this is fantastic value!
its 5x overpriced -.-


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## Okedokey

Yeah, dam those Thai people, selfish floods


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## BlueDogAnchorite

can anyone find one more than 5x normal price?


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## jtm9emo

Gah!!! and I want to buy a 2TB drive right nahhh!!! I'm down to ~38gb on my 1TB drive...


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## billabong27

2TB Barracuda

If you have a Best Buy near you they might be able to order that for you and ship it to your house...be warned all of them are going to be on back order and take an extra week or two.  I ordered my 3TB drive last week for 180 from the buy, but it said it would take an extra week or two to ship.


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## 4NGU$

bigfellla said:


> Yeah, dam those Thai people, selfish floods



was thinking more like stupid trade system, relying so heavily on so few countries that have a very poor infrastructure 

Prices are yo-yoing on ebuyer I've had some items in my basket for the last few days and each day the price of the HDD is different by about £5 each way


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## jamesd1981

I bet the large computer manufacturers are not paying the over inflated prices


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## voyagerfan99

Was just talking to Bobby (Vroom_Skies) about this last night. Hopefully prices will go back down after the flood; otherwise it'll make me stop buying new hardware. Though for primary drives, SSD's will almost be worth it.


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## jamesd1981

found this on a tech site, does this mean it will take 2 years for prices to go back down.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/11/07/hard-disk-component-supply-could-take-years/1


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## Geoff

And I really need some new hard drives, my 1.5TB RAID is almost full


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## voyagerfan99

jamesd1981 said:


> found this on a tech site, does this mean it will take 2 years for prices to go back down.
> 
> http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/11/07/hard-disk-component-supply-could-take-years/1



That is not cool at all. If they're right, the computer world for hard drives will really blow for the next two years.


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## Okedokey

4NGU$ said:


> was thinking more like stupid trade system, relying so heavily on so few countries that have a very poor infrastructure



No country's infrastructure will be able to withstand such floods.  Thailand is actually the 2nd largest exporter after China.    Hurricane Katrina anyone?  Doesn't really matter what country it happens in.


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## StrangleHold

SSD could go either way. Could raise prices to take advantage, or lower prices to make them more popular and take a hit on overhead but make it up in volume.


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## Okedokey

^ Agreed.

Those that don't need uber space will probably opt for a 120GB drive SSD and those that percieve they need a 2TB drive will pay through the rectum.


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## 4NGU$

bigfellla said:


> No country's infrastructure will be able to withstand such floods.  Thailand is actually the 2nd largest exporter after China.    Hurricane Katrina anyone?  Doesn't really matter what country it happens in.



was thinking more that spreading the production to other nations  hell we could even have things made in our own country...


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## BlueDogAnchorite

4NGU$ said:


> was thinking more that spreading the production to other nations  hell we could even have things made in our own country...



How I wish.


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## WeatherMan

I managed to get extremely lucky.

My mum's hard drive in her laptop recently took a dump, I've been scratching my head as to where to pick up a cheap one for a few weeks now.

Finally found a brand new 250GB Seagate (SATA/2.5") for £40 on Amazon.co.uk! The cheapest on Ebuyer right now is around £60, and that's for a 160GB IIRC.


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## BlueDogAnchorite

£35 250gb 5400 rpm cheapest one I could find (for now)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004UGSF...de=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B004UGSF4I


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## Heku

http://hekuzz.deviantart.com/art/HDD-Prices-Raising-268235546
there is a pic how the prices have been raising in MultiTronic, from 40-100e in a short time..
this is the main reason why i didn't upgrade my HDD for my soon comming computer... i might buy one when the price is coming back.. if they are...


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## pc_fanatic

Okay so its not just me! I was on newegg and the 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 that i bought for 59.99 is now 159.99! Glad I bought it when I did. Don't know whats causing this but hopefully things get back to normal.

If I knew this was gonna happen I would stocked up on them and undercut the new prices!


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## pc_fanatic

BlueDogAnchorite said:


> http://www.ebuyer.com/173804-samsun...-hard-drive-sataii-7200rpm-32mb-cache-hd103sj
> 
> What are you talking about this is fantastic value!
> its 5x overpriced -.-



Dude thats only like 2.5x over priced


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## voyagerfan99

pc_fanatic said:


> Okay so its not just me! I was on newegg and the 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 that i bought for 59.99 is now 159.99! Glad I bought it when I did. Don't know whats causing this but hopefully things get back to normal.
> 
> If I knew this was gonna happen I would stocked up on them and undercut the new prices!





pc_fanatic said:


> Dude thats only like 2.5x over priced



Flooding in Southern Asia

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/11/15/nation/9905701&sec=nation


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## pc_fanatic

voyagerfan99 said:


> Flooding in Southern Asia
> 
> http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/11/15/nation/9905701&sec=nation



Oh lol I stopped pay attention to news a long time ago. Maybe I should keep up at least a little, like read headlines lol


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## CrazyMike

Just a note:

In my area HDD prices have increase dramatically, yet SSD prices have dropped. Average drop is approx $50 - $100 cheaper. This has been affected in the past 2 months. Prices have seem to get lower and lower. 

Eg. Corsiar Force Series Sata III 120GB - was $256 now $200


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## voyagerfan99

CrazyMike said:


> Just a note:
> 
> In my area HDD prices have increase dramatically, yet SSD prices have dropped. Average drop is approx $50 - $100 cheaper. This has been affected in the past 2 months. Prices have seem to get lower and lower.
> 
> Eg. Corsiar Force Series Sata III 120GB - was $256 now $200



Yeah I saw that. This is the best rated SSD on Newegg and it's under $130!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357


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## johnb35

voyagerfan99 said:


> Yeah I saw that. This is the best rated SSD on Newegg and it's under $130!
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357



Thats the one I have except I bought it at Tigerdirect during the summer.  It's an awesome drive.  

However, I'm upgrading to the 128gb M4 drive really soon though.


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## CrazyMike

voyagerfan99 said:


> Yeah I saw that. This is the best rated SSD on Newegg and it's under $130!
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148357



Off topic question:

I am at work, i try to click the link you provided yet an access denied page comes up (mainly cause we are highly restricted on which site we can go to). Yet i can surf newegg site all i want. Why and how is the link not working?


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## voyagerfan99

CrazyMike said:


> Off topic question:
> 
> I am at work, i try to click the link you provided yet an access denied page comes up (mainly cause we are highly restricted on which site we can go to). Yet i can surf newegg site all i want. Why and how is the link not working?



Might be because this is newegg.com and not newegg.ca?

Try this one:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...k=Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1 2.5"



johnb35 said:


> Thats the one I have except I bought it at Tigerdirect during the summer.  It's an awesome drive.
> 
> However, I'm upgrading to the 128gb M4 drive really soon though.



How much did you pay for it over the summer?


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## CrazyMike

voyagerfan99 said:


> Might be because this is newegg.com and not newegg.ca?
> 
> Try this one:
> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...k=Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1 2.5"



It worked, but unsure why. I can access www.newegg.com and www.newegg.ca. weird, but thanks.


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## Darren

CrazyMike said:


> It worked, but unsure why. I can access www.newegg.com and www.newegg.ca. weird, but thanks.



I have an issue where when I click on a newegg.ca link it will open up the main page of newegg.ca in a new tab and my current tab will go to an untitled blank page. 

Again I can navigate newegg.ca no problems though.


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## Mosely22

looks like i just missed out, didnt know about this huge increase of prices


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## Mosely22

2yrs for prices to be the same? i don't think it will be that long bro, 2yrs from now they should have much more than 3tb external hard drive's available.....well, at least hopefully! have to love technology!


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## voyagerfan99

Mosely22 said:


> 2yrs for prices to be the same? i don't think it will be that long bro, 2yrs from now they should have much more than 3tb external hard drive's available.....well, at least hopefully! have to love technology!



Well we won't really know.


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## Mosely22

voyagerfan99 said:


> Well we won't really know.



true, i would just imagine that in a couple years from now there will be bigger hard drives......my buddy ordered a hitachi 3tb ehd 2 weeks ago and paid $119.99 for it! insaneeee. i told him about the floods and he was so happy he got his a couple of weeks ago. wish i did, lol


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## Mosely22

JHM said:


> Not only are prices going up, but quality is going down. I bought a bunch of "NEW" HDDs for the machine I am building, then ran "TESTHDD" on them. 1 wasn't recognized by the bios, 1 had fairly bad sector damage all over the drive, 1 had solid minor sector damage from one end to the other of the drive, 1 was good with only a little minor sector damage, 1 was good except that it had fairly bad sector damage at the back of the drive, 2 were good except that they had a much lower read speed that the other 2 good ones, ETC. NOT A GOOD TIME TO BE BUYING HDDs!!



where can i use the "TestHDD" program?? i think i saw it on here somewhere, but i can't remember where i saw it..


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## Mosely22

^^ just wanted to bump this so i can find out where to do the "testhdd"


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## johnb35

Mosely22 said:


> ^^ just wanted to bump this so i can find out where to do the "testhdd"



I wouldn't worry about testing the hard drives.  You may find that 1 out of 20 drives may actually be defective.  And actually you will want to use the drive makers disk diagnostic utility to actually test the drive.  JHM sees to be overly worried about defective drives.


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## Mosely22

johnb35 said:


> I wouldn't worry about testing the hard drives.  You may find that 1 out of 20 drives may actually be defective.  And actually you will want to use the drive makers disk diagnostic utility to actually test the drive.  JHM sees to be overly worried about defective drives.



oh ok. do you know where i can find this "testhdd" program though? i def would like to check it out


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## BlueDogAnchorite

pc_fanatic said:


> Dude thats only like 2.5x over priced



Was when I posted it. They were bouncing the prices around more at the start of the crisis.


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