Amen, brutha.  I just started a business last year.  Seeing all this stuff makes me feel either of two ways: naive for insisting to make a buck the honest way; stupid for not coming up with these methods myself.

Yes, that is the problem I have too. At times I feel stupid for not playing these dirty tricks. However, they *do* come back to bite them in the long run, at least in many cases. Of course, then they open up shop under a new name and all is 'reset' and 'forgotten', lol.

Transparency is the key. If consumers could see more about what is going on, in unmanipulated format, then it would help, as it could theoretically affect their purchasing decisions. This is what the media is supposed to do, but sadly there are more paid for editorials than there is exposes on the internet.

My guess (and it's just a guess) is that if there's been a spike in demand it's due to panic buying and/or speculation.

I went through all this.. please read posts before. There would be NO SUPPLY SHORTAGE if there were not speculators, retailers holding inventory waiting for price stabilization, and panic'd buying. If none of this was in the news, nothing would have ever happened.

One thing to remember is that some retailers immediately jacked up prices too, I mean the DAY of the news, when they had plenty of stock, and the distributors they buy from had plenty of stock.

Example:

Before occurrence of flooding this drive sold for $69 at Amazon.com /w free shipping.

Now
Amazon.com is currently selling WD20EARS for $174 /w free shipping (highest yet, I've been monitoring)
Tigerdirect.com is current selling WD20EARS for $209.99 + extra shipping (been that high for a while, they even tried higher iirc)

There is STILL plenty of stock in the supply chain. However, I do expect prices to be artificially inflated for 6 months or so.

One thing to remember is that some retailers immediately jacked up prices too. Example:

Amazon.com is currently selling WD20EARS for $174 /w free shipping (highest yet, I've been monitoring)
Tigerdirect.com is current selling WD20EARS for $209.99 + extra shipping (been that high for a while, they even tried higher iirc)

Do you think the days of cheap hard drives are over somewhat?  What I mean is that the last 2-3 years, hard drive prices were dirt cheap.  It got to a point where if I had to burn a dvd, I'd rather just go down to the store and get  a hard drive to dump stuff onto.

Is that changing?  i feel it is.  Cloud storage, laptops, tablets, phones...who is really relying on the desktop that's not a business?  So I feel like the demand is actually decreasing, or at least I can argue that (I have no idea what is really happening).  And because the demand is decreasing, the manufacturers are losing that consumer market.  So they will use any excuse to jack the prices up for the hardcore geeks who are becoming their only real consumer.

Here's a question: have the external drives jumped in price the way the bare drives have?

I'm closely paying attention to any restrictions on personal data storage.  That's why I may sound a little paranoid.  I'm afraid of this movement away from Windows and tradional operating systems, into things like Android and iOS, which has inevitably made most casual computer users not be concerned anymore about low-level file and folder access.  This is very similar to when people moved away from DOS commands into pretty GUIs for the OSs.  A few years later, nobody remembered the days when you had to use commands like "dir" and stuff.  Now, we're moving away from the way we used files and folders, and it has been simplified into very easy and convenient buttons.  Which is good for most people.  But that's because the companies are controlling all the data from the backend, hence the movement to cloud storage.  If you don't need those big heavy hard drives, you don't need the desktop. And if all you're doing is email and web stuff, you don't even need a keyboard, hence the touchscreens.  But...if you like to keep your own data to yourself, well, that just got a lot harder to balance.

If this is only for 6 months, that's cool.  But I don't think so.  I think the hard drive industry is going to be hit hard by the cloud storage and the tablet evolution.

I read all your stuff, thank you, it's very good information.  Please don't be offended if I keep harping about things, it's just a discussion.

I tend to offend other people, so don't worry about me ;p.

You pose some interesting questions in the bigger picture, and I need to read it more to give a full response. I am too busy right now, typing this real fast to get back to work. However, I will say this: Remember that while there is certainly a growing market desire for tablets and other such devices, the PC (with keyboard and mouse input) remains the most efficient method to produce, and that is not likely to change anytime soon. Not only produce, but also consume in many cases. The business segment alone is no small segment, so also keep that in mind. Even simple things end users do are faster to do on a traditional PC with mouse and keyboard.

SSDs will eventually overtake HDDs and the price will start to rise, but that day is far away due to their inferior capacity and cost per MB ratio at this time.

I'll be back and respond to your full comments if I can.

Ok, to respond more to your concerns .. again, in a hurry.. but:

Quote

If this is only for 6 months, that's cool.  But I don't think so.  I think the hard drive industry is going to be hit hard by the cloud storage and the tablet evolution.

What do you think backs the storage for all those clouds? Massive numbers of traditional 3.5" HDDs in server farms ....

No need to rush, man!  Take your time.  But thanks anyway.
I guess what I'm saying is that for the average consumer, the hard drive market will change.  Big businesses buying things and regular people buying things are two very different markets.  Price/quality/how easy it is to buy it, are very different in the two worlds.  We'll see what happens.  For example, a shareware that you use to keep track of your tasks would cost you $30 (or $5 for an app).  A similar thing built for corporations, but functionally does the same thing, would cost something like $100 a license, and the name will be very weird, and the website will be very obscure (forcing you to bring a sales rep down to explain what the software actually does), etc.

So if hard drives become primarily a "corporate" thing, I feel it just means it will be much more expensive or more of a headache for me to buy.  Which is not that big of a deal if I can afford it.  Even if drives were $300 each, I'd still get a bunch, because I'm such a nut about storing all of my stuff locally.

Sure, it will change... though don't forget a 3.5" standard ole HDD is in your DVR too ;p. It won't only be a corporate thing .. at least not for the next decade. By then, maybe, as SSDs surpass them in value.

Yes, but a DVR is just a box built by a big company that you buy from them.  I'm not saying traditional hard drives will not be used.  I'm saying they won't be used by most consumers anymore.  They'll be like the DVR, or the smartphones, where there's a bunch of stuff inside, but you don't know what they are, nor is it meant for you to have access to it.  Can you add more storage to a DVR by going to the store, getting a HD, and plugging it into the DVR?  I don't think so (can you?).  So you would call Verizon, ask them to "upgrade" your box to a bigger, more expensive one.  And the difference for that extra 1TB (which won't be referred to as "bytes" but rather "20 hours" more of storage) won't be $100, but it'll be like $300.  Like the different ipad models (16,32,64gb) nonsense.  Why not just have a base model device, and let people buy cheap memory cards to slide into and out of the thing?  because it restricts the buyer and makes them spend more money than that kind of flexibility offers.  Now you have to make decisions like "is 8GB worth an extra $100 ?"  Well, that's a hard question to answer when you know an 8GB memory card costs $15, and a 1TB hard drive costs $100.  But if you don't know that, than how do you answer that question?  You don't, you just get it because you need it or it sounded like a good idea at the time.  Easy money for the big boys.

Wow... the gall.  And on a supposed sale weekend also.

From tigerdirect.com.  The prices don't look too bad... until you look at the amount off that's supposed to be after.

The question I am wondering is when will we see laptop and desktop prices rocket?

Well, the drive makers want the price to rocket- as do the retailers.  They're pricing old stock at high prices based on problems in the supply chain.  The desktop and laptop makers *don't* want the prices to rise.  So I suppose it's when the lack of supplies *actually* reach the supply chain.  I think we have a little while yet... maybe the middle to the end of 1Q2012?

I think we might finally start seeing the adoption and capacity growth of SSDs as system builders (including large manufacturers) scrabble for he dwindling supply.

Actually it would be a really good thing esp. for portable devices if both device capacity and manufacturing can be increased. With a bit of intelligent marketting we might be seeing the end of the mechanical disk market.

@db90h:
About WD we are in agreement. Those disks are more reliable and quieter than Seagate disks. And I have a pile of Seagate bricks (45 or so) and 0 WD doorstops to prove it as well. Actually, I have here a database server with 2 WD disks (2,5 TByte in total) and that system runs without any issues. With the amount of power failures that this PC has experienced, that is amazing (especially if you know that I have here 5 UPS's which didn't survive these power failures).

I have another database server with 2 Seagate disks (1,5 TByte in total) and guess what, that system is a pain in the ..s.

It is my experience with WD disks, it either fails very soon after buying it or lasts "forever".

It been fairly even for me, with no clear most reliable manufacturer. While I usually go WD for most drives, I also tend to pick Seagate for SCSI applications.

Only time I saw mass failures was during the end of the OEM's were using 256MB of RAM era ... XP needed (much) more than that and was burning a hole in the drive where the pagefile wasn't anymore. Now I got a huge stack of those failures, but they're evenly spread across all manufacturers.

Quote from: Shades on November 29, 2011, 11:12 AM

And I have a pile of Seagate bricks (45 or so) and 0 WD doorstops to prove it as well.

I'm exactly the opposite.  I always go with Seagate now after much time using WD in home builds and at work in another lifetime of doing configuration and QA.  And I've never had a Seagate fail on me (the one time I thought it was, it was the cable... go figure), and have had quite a few WD bricks to my name.

I've had 1 Seagate drive go bad, and it did so with a SMART error about a week after I bought it. I took it to the Seagate service center, and they replaced it instantly.

Having had nothing but bad luck with dishonest companies, I was impressed at being treated fairly by Seagate. Almost every drive I buy is Seagate now. All of my large externals are Seagates.

Anyways, a +1 for Seagate.