HD supply

[Yes]

Is it my imagination, or are hard drive prices starting to drop a bit
I'm on NewEgg's mailing list, and it seems like they're starting to
offer more variety of hard drives and at what IMO are more reasonable
prices.

Have the disk manufacturers rebuilt the factories that were destroyed
in last year's flood in Thailand? Are they starting to hit the market
in quantities prior to the floods or did they scale back the production
capacity?

Assuming that the manufacturers will probably have glitches as they get
their operations back up to speed, how long after the plants are
operational and producing should one wait before buying one?

John

 

[Paul]

Is it my imagination, or are hard drive prices starting to drop a bit
I'm on NewEgg's mailing list, and it seems like they're starting to
offer more variety of hard drives and at what IMO are more reasonable
prices.

Have the disk manufacturers rebuilt the factories that were destroyed
in last year's flood in Thailand? Are they starting to hit the market
in quantities prior to the floods or did they scale back the production
capacity?

Assuming that the manufacturers will probably have glitches as they get
their operations back up to speed, how long after the plants are
operational and producing should one wait before buying one?

John

A guesstimate here, is "full production in the second half of the year".

http://news.investors.com/article/609116/201204251333/western-digital-earnings-seen-jumping.htm

The pricing now, might be due to soft demand, rather than ramped production.
Take a look around, and see if you can find more of those style of
press releases, for a better idea of when it's safe.

When I looked at Newegg SKUs a couple months ago, there was
a significant percentage of products sold as "refurbs". I'd say
if those start to disappear, and a greater percentage of SKUs
are sold as "new", then that too would be a good sign. It would
mean there is enough supply, they don't have to sell the refurbs.
(They give the refurbs back anyway, when you ask for warranty service.)

Refurbs are fine for disk drive capacities that are no longer for
sale. For example, if you needed a 20/40/60/80GB drive to repair
an older computer, you might have no choice but to use a drive
marked as a refurb. And that's because they'd no longer be
making platters for low capacity drives like that, they'd have
dumped their servo writers etc., and can no longer make those
drives. And then sales consist of whatever stock is left in
the warehouse.

Paul

 

[Gordon]

Is it my imagination, or are hard drive prices starting to drop a bit
I'm on NewEgg's mailing list, and it seems like they're starting to
offer more variety of hard drives and at what IMO are more reasonable
prices.

Have the disk manufacturers rebuilt the factories that were destroyed
in last year's flood in Thailand? Are they starting to hit the market
in quantities prior to the floods or did they scale back the production
capacity?

Assuming that the manufacturers will probably have glitches as they get
their operations back up to speed, how long after the plants are
operational and producing should one wait before buying one?

Buy when you *need* one. Simple.