Why sudden hard drive price hike?

[eleskin]

I guess I have been out of the loop, but less than a year ago I bought a Western Digital 2TB Caviar Black for $130 or so at B&H. Now I see them for $229, almost $100 more for the same thing. What the hell happened here? I know there is inflation, maybe $10 more or so, but this? What gives?

[bwcolor]

Massive flooding in Thailand. Manufacturing under water. done.

[julescasablancas]

From what I read in the papers, it's apparently due to the flood in thailand

[Steve M.]

I would say you're buying in the wrong store. Do a google, and you'll see these can be had from $152 on up. This is typical for a NY camera store pricing, which is why I never buy from them anymore.

[digitalintrigue]

Flood and why are you buying them at B&H?

[---f]

Same over here on the wet coast of Canada. restricted purchasing and drives up by 33% in price. I bought a 750gb 2.5 drive for $230 that used be $150.00. Oh well, you need a new drive, you have to get it!

[eleskin]

Boy, I did not know WD had made them in Thailand. Of corse my heart goes out to the people suffering there.

That being said, I would gladly pay over $200 if that Hard Drive was made in the United States. We need to bring manufacturing back home again!

[swoop]

Originally Posted by eleskin

Boy, I did not know WD had made them in Thailand. Of corse my heart goes out to the people suffering there.

That being said, I would gladly pay over $200 if that Hard Drive was made in the United States. We need to bring manufacturing back home again!

We need to bring a lot of jobs home. We also need to just bring a lot of jobs back.

On a similar note, have you ever seen the show How it's Made? It's damn surpising how few people are actually involved in making a lot of the stuff we use. There's an automated assembly line for everything. My girlfriend and I were watching some episodes and the question of the night was "Where are all the people?" It's all robots.

[michaelbialecki]

Yeah, being based out here in Bangkok, I have heard a lot of stories about hard drive factories that have been badly damaged due to the floods.... Nikon, Toyota, Honda and countless others factories out here have been damaged as well.......so many people here are out of work and are in a bad situation........the good news is, the water is slowly being pumped/channeled out to the sea......but I have a feeling it will take some time for many of these factories to be up and running again.......

cheers, michael

[JohnTF]

Originally Posted by swoop

We need to bring a lot of jobs home. We also need to just bring a lot of jobs back.

On a similar note, have you ever seen the show How it's Made? It's damn surpising how few people are actually involved in making a lot of the stuff we use. There's an automated assembly line for everything. My girlfriend and I were watching some episodes and the question of the night was "Where are all the people?" It's all robots.

Have they featured the M9 yet?

Any floods driving up Leitz glass?

I heard B&H uses robotic packing of your order.

;-)

Regards, John

[BillBingham2]

PM sent as I have one I've not used. It's an interesting unexpected consequence as manufacturers move plants to lower cost labor locations. I too would pay a 20% increase on technology if it were made here in the US.

B2

[Pherdinand]

do you really think the difference is 20% ?

[bensyverson]

Originally Posted by BillBingham2

I too would pay a 20% increase on technology if it were made here in the US.

Haha... Yeah, let's just get them made at the Foxconn facility in Kansas.

If someone ever did build a production-scale hard disk fab plant in the US, the price difference would not be 20%... Try 200%, if you're being optimistic. If you'd buy the US-made hard drive for $200-500 instead of the $100 foreign made drive, you're certainly in the minority. It would be suicide for the drive's manufacturer to limit their market to Americans who are rich and patriotic enough to pay the premium, when everyone in the world needs hard drives.

Minimum wage may be barely enough to survive in this country, but it's roughly 10 times what workers make overseas. And you'd probably want to pay skilled workers around twice minimum wage.

[BillBingham2]

Originally Posted by Pherdinand

do you really think the difference is 20% ?

No, but that is what I'd be willing to pay for a commodity product. I do not know enough about the supply chain but I bet the raw materials would be a lot less than here in the state, as would the machines to build the little buggers. At the end of the day I think Ben is right about the delta (100% - 500%) but I think the cost of the workers would not be that much greater for line workers (feeding the machines).

B2

[nightfly]

Prices are supposed to come back down by December. Will try to find where I read that.