{"id":12595,"date":"2011-11-15T12:07:01","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T17:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=12595"},"modified":"2014-05-22T13:31:44","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T18:31:44","slug":"hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard Drive Shortages &#8211; Where Is This Going?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2679\" title=\"hard drives\" src=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hard-drives.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"191\" srcset=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hard-drives.jpg 250w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hard-drives-157x120.jpg 157w, https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hard-drives-190x145.jpg 190w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>Three weeks ago, I thought the Thailand\/hard drive situation was bad and had worst-case scenarios in consideration. A week later and the worst of the worst-case didn&#8217;t line up with what was becoming reality. It seems like there may be some improvement in drive supply by mid-December, but it&#8217;s still disastrous and supplies are not likely to return to previous \u201cnormal\u201d levels for many months\u2014possibly even as long as a year.<\/p>\n<p>For those who haven\u2019t been following <a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?s=Thailand&amp;x=0&amp;y=0\">our coverage of the problem<\/a>, here it is in a nut shell.<\/p>\n<p>First, Western Digital&#8217;s main production complex in Thailand (one that produces about 60% of WD&#8217;s output and roughly 18% of the overall world drive supply) was first inaccessible, then literally under water from the flooding. Adding to the problem, there are also many drive sub-component manufacturers also impacted by the flooding; the one most critical to the hard drive industry would be be Nidec.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Nidec happens to supply nearly 100% of the drive motors to drive manufacturers like Hitachi, Seagate, Toshiba, etc., in addition to Western Digital. Roughly 90% of the Nidec production was in this same region, meaning multiple facilities are either offline due to inaccessibility or under water. Alternate production facilities are being fired up and\/or production increased at those unaffected, but the impact of losing a single source\/single world supplier made what was already bad go beyond even the worst expectations.<\/p>\n<p>This is an industry that is supposedly all about back ups; apparently they hardly take their own advice and now we&#8217;re literally paying the price. It\u2019s really unbelievable to me, and I wonder if stockholders\/boards of these companies will learn from the failure from allowing such oversight. Right now, though, the milk has already spilled and cleanup can&#8217;t even begin until that water recedes.<\/p>\n<p>The one bright spot in all this are our <a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/shop\/SSD\/OWC\/\">OWC Mercury SSDs<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/Video\/SSD\/Performance_Test\">We\u2019ve shown that they\u2019re a major upgrade<\/a> over a platter-based hard drive when it comes to the overall performance they deliver to a system and, despite increased demand as of late, cost is down from a month ago and pretty stable.<\/p>\n<p>Consumers and businesses are buying more, but the system builders really can&#8217;t bridge the cost difference between platter-based drives and SSDs (at least not yet), so NAND availability hasn\u2019t been impacted yet. That means that while hard drive cost has skyrocketed over the past month, SSDs have edged lower. I do acknowledge that mass storage needs are not practical to replace with an SSD; compare the cost of a 2TB HD vs. cost for a high-capacity SSD. However, the cost-per-gigabyte of hard drives and SSDs are steadily growing closer.<\/p>\n<p><em>B<\/em><em>y no means <\/em>am  I overlooking the human tragedy for the people of Thailand in this  natural disaster. The impact on their lives is much more concerning than harder-to-find hard drives. What this disaster will do to the agriculture and food supplies in the region and even across Southeast Asia is unknown. My expertise, however, is on the drive aspect so  that\u2019s where I&#8217;ve focused my commentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three weeks ago, I thought the Thailand\/hard drive situation was bad and had worst-case scenarios in consideration. A week later and the worst of the worst-case didn&#8217;t line up with what was becoming reality. It seems like there may be some improvement in drive supply by mid-December, but it&#8217;s still disastrous and supplies are not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3770],"class_list":["post-12595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-random-thoughts-and-topics","category-unplugged"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.2 (Yoast SEO v20.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hard Drive Shortages - Where Is This Going?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019d like to take a moment to comment on the Thailand\/hard drive situation.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hard Drive Shortages - Where Is This Going?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019d like to take a moment to comment on the Thailand\/hard drive situation.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rocket Yard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-15T17:07:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-22T18:31:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hard-drives.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"191\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"OWC Larry\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"OWC Larry\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"OWC Larry\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/10d17bcb4471b36888bc7a9c40c5a7ff\"},\"headline\":\"Hard Drive Shortages &#8211; Where Is This Going?\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-11-15T17:07:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-05-22T18:31:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/\"},\"wordCount\":530,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"drive shortage\",\"flooding\",\"Hitachi\",\"Nidec\",\"Production\",\"Seagate\",\"thailand\",\"Toshiba\",\"Western Digital\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Random Thoughts &amp; Topics\",\"Unplugged\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/\",\"name\":\"Hard Drive Shortages - Where Is This Going?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-11-15T17:07:01+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-05-22T18:31:44+00:00\",\"description\":\"I\u2019d like to take a moment to comment on the Thailand\/hard drive situation.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Hard Drive Shortages &#8211; Where Is This Going?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Rocket Yard\",\"description\":\"Your source for expert tips, special deals, commentary, reviews, and the latest tech news.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"OWC\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/rocket-yard-logo-round.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/rocket-yard-logo-round.png\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":1024,\"caption\":\"OWC\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/10d17bcb4471b36888bc7a9c40c5a7ff\",\"name\":\"OWC Larry\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fbd967c29c3decf9ecfa348bf4d413ec760e74fd59b16b8d48eadda87d50c896?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fbd967c29c3decf9ecfa348bf4d413ec760e74fd59b16b8d48eadda87d50c896?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"OWC Larry\"},\"description\":\"Larry O'Connor is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Illinois-based Other World Computing (OWC\u00ae). Starting as a one-man business in 1988, O'Connor has provided the leadership and vision to establish OWC as the leading provider of technology products and services today.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.macsales.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/author\/owc-larry\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hard Drive Shortages - Where Is This Going?","description":"I\u2019d like to take a moment to comment on the Thailand\/hard drive situation.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hard Drive Shortages - Where Is This Going?","og_description":"I\u2019d like to take a moment to comment on the Thailand\/hard drive situation.","og_url":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/","og_site_name":"Rocket Yard","article_published_time":"2011-11-15T17:07:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-05-22T18:31:44+00:00","og_image":[{"width":250,"height":191,"url":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hard-drives.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"OWC Larry","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"OWC Larry","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/"},"author":{"name":"OWC Larry","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/10d17bcb4471b36888bc7a9c40c5a7ff"},"headline":"Hard Drive Shortages &#8211; Where Is This Going?","datePublished":"2011-11-15T17:07:01+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-22T18:31:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/"},"wordCount":530,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#organization"},"keywords":["drive shortage","flooding","Hitachi","Nidec","Production","Seagate","thailand","Toshiba","Western Digital"],"articleSection":["Random Thoughts &amp; Topics","Unplugged"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/","url":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/","name":"Hard Drive Shortages - Where Is This Going?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-11-15T17:07:01+00:00","dateModified":"2014-05-22T18:31:44+00:00","description":"I\u2019d like to take a moment to comment on the Thailand\/hard drive situation.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/12595-hard-drive-shortages-where-is-this-going\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hard Drive Shortages &#8211; Where Is This Going?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/","name":"Rocket Yard","description":"Your source for expert tips, special deals, commentary, reviews, and the latest tech news.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"OWC","url":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/rocket-yard-logo-round.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/rocket-yard-logo-round.png","width":1024,"height":1024,"caption":"OWC"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/10d17bcb4471b36888bc7a9c40c5a7ff","name":"OWC Larry","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fbd967c29c3decf9ecfa348bf4d413ec760e74fd59b16b8d48eadda87d50c896?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fbd967c29c3decf9ecfa348bf4d413ec760e74fd59b16b8d48eadda87d50c896?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"OWC Larry"},"description":"Larry O'Connor is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Illinois-based Other World Computing (OWC\u00ae). Starting as a one-man business in 1988, O'Connor has provided the leadership and vision to establish OWC as the leading provider of technology products and services today.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.macsales.com"],"url":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/author\/owc-larry\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/hard-drives.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pmPaT-3h9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12595"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12609,"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12595\/revisions\/12609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}