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Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

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Re: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

#11

Sample size 1: every 3 months I need to buy a large hard drive (14TB+). I buy external USB ones since they are the cheapest. Since it was due, in the last couple of weeks I was scanning prices in Romania daily, in case I get lucky with a discount. In the last week, prices surged 60-100%, and stock disappeared for 4 TB+. I panicked and after a lot of scanning I managed to buy a slightly smaller one than I needed with…

My advice is to ignore anonymous new accounts making inflammatory and fear mongering statements.

Open Amazon and look up hard drive prices and availability.

This one is easy to fact check.

Re: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

#12
post #8

Sample size 1: every 3 months I need to buy a large hard drive (14TB+). I buy external USB ones since they are the cheapest. Since it was due, in the last couple of weeks I was scanning prices in Romania daily, in case I get lucky with a discount. In the last week, prices surged 60-100%, and stock disappeared for 4 TB+. I panicked and after a lot of scanning I managed to buy a slightly smaller one than I needed with…

I'm not sure how pricing works where you live, but to get optimal pricing I usually have to wait a few months, or maybe even a year (black Friday). Given that all time lows for hard drive prices haven't budged much in the past few years, why buy every few months rather than stocking up when prices are low? Anyways for my data point: there was some external hard drives on sale for 5-10% higher than "optimal" prices. >…

Opportunity cost. By keeping my cash in bitcoin I can now buy (well, not with this shortage) 5 times more hard drives than last black Friday.

Re: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

#14

Sample size 1: every 3 months I need to buy a large hard drive (14TB+). I buy external USB ones since they are the cheapest. Since it was due, in the last couple of weeks I was scanning prices in Romania daily, in case I get lucky with a discount. In the last week, prices surged 60-100%, and stock disappeared for 4 TB+. I panicked and after a lot of scanning I managed to buy a slightly smaller one than I needed with…

I just checked my Amazon order history right now. Last time I bought a Samsung Evo Plus 1 TB SSD was last August, 2020, for $189. Price right now if I buy it today is $159. Last HDD I bought was a 12 TB Seagate Ironwolf for $269, in October 2020. Today's price for the same drive is $325. It is out of stock, but says I can get it May 18th.

Re: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

#15

Sample size 1: every 3 months I need to buy a large hard drive (14TB+). I buy external USB ones since they are the cheapest. Since it was due, in the last couple of weeks I was scanning prices in Romania daily, in case I get lucky with a discount. In the last week, prices surged 60-100%, and stock disappeared for 4 TB+. I panicked and after a lot of scanning I managed to buy a slightly smaller one than I needed with…

CPU, GPU and Hard Drive.... guess we can have more dumb devices for now instead of everything IoT.

Re: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

#16

Sample size 1: every 3 months I need to buy a large hard drive (14TB+). I buy external USB ones since they are the cheapest. Since it was due, in the last couple of weeks I was scanning prices in Romania daily, in case I get lucky with a discount. In the last week, prices surged 60-100%, and stock disappeared for 4 TB+. I panicked and after a lot of scanning I managed to buy a slightly smaller one than I needed with…

Shortages are good. It's the perfect time to set up manufacturing capability, so nationalists can be happy. It's a good time to push for hire wages, workers should do it. If there is some alternative industrial process, now's the time to try it. This is no 70s oil moment, because there's no indication fewer widgets are being produced than prepandemic.

I think it’s a logistics problem, so adding more supply via new factories (unless local) won’t resolve the problem if the goods can’t be shipped.

Re: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

#18

Sample size 1: every 3 months I need to buy a large hard drive (14TB+). I buy external USB ones since they are the cheapest. Since it was due, in the last couple of weeks I was scanning prices in Romania daily, in case I get lucky with a discount. In the last week, prices surged 60-100%, and stock disappeared for 4 TB+. I panicked and after a lot of scanning I managed to buy a slightly smaller one than I needed with…

My sample size of 1 shows little to no move, although I wasn't looking at drives as large as you. In my case I was having my eyes on 5 TB 2.5" drives. I don't need them, I'd just maybe like them, so I haven't pulled the trigger, but I have them set aside on Amazon France. The price has stayed within a few euros of 110 € for the last 2-3 months.

Same here for the same product, but in Germany.

Re: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

#19

TIL all it takes to be a reputable "industry insider" is an anonymous reddit account.

The scary thing is, I don't know if I can trust him less than any 'reputable newspaper'. At least if this he says dumb things, someone on HN will call him out. The reputable source has only one voice, it will say anything that brings in extra money, and lots of invisible third parties will try to influence it.

Re: Thoughts on a “HDD shortage” from an industry insider

#20

Sample size 1: every 3 months I need to buy a large hard drive (14TB+). I buy external USB ones since they are the cheapest. Since it was due, in the last couple of weeks I was scanning prices in Romania daily, in case I get lucky with a discount. In the last week, prices surged 60-100%, and stock disappeared for 4 TB+. I panicked and after a lot of scanning I managed to buy a slightly smaller one than I needed with…

My sample size of 1 shows little to no move, although I wasn't looking at drives as large as you. In my case I was having my eyes on 5 TB 2.5" drives. I don't need them, I'd just maybe like them, so I haven't pulled the trigger, but I have them set aside on Amazon France. The price has stayed within a few euros of 110 € for the last 2-3 months.

My advice would be to decide today if you want them or not. They are not going to get cheaper, and could get significantly more expensive in days.
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