Consumer Alert - Buy Hard Drives Now. Prices To Rise.

[Lordhumungus]

Anyone know what model drive is inside that Hitachi 3TB at Office Max?

 

[fastcuda]

This thread would be important to someone looking for a hot deal on a hard drive, but there are no hot deals listed here, which makes this an off topic thread. Chicken is going up, so I'm off to the store to get some.

Do chickens eat peanut butter?

 

[Cheesetogo]

That's a link to the 1.5TB.
Here's the 2TB (same price):
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+...&skuId=9234465

Just went and picked up 2 of these today. They also had 3TB external Seagate drives for $133.

 

[ibex333]

Ahhh... Damnit! Hard Drives were getting dirt cheap, and now this... How am I going to store all that pron now?

 

[mindless1]

This is a conspiracy by Steve Jobs to make us all join a cloud... he is laughing.

 

[ZYFER]

To note, you can still get your hands on some decent prices by buying at local stores such as Sam's Club or Costco. They shouldn't have bumped their prices up too soon till they replace their stoc, and most people don't go looking there for hard drives.

This will only really help you for external drives, but inside each one is an internal drive anyways. Voids your warranty if you use it like that ofcourse.

 

[86waterpumper]

I got a email from amazon this morning advertising these two...not sure how hard it would be to get them out of the enclosure though if you wanted a internal.
Has crap reviews also but there you go some bigger drives that don't break the bank at least.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056YNA1Q/...0_pd_re_dt_dt1

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056YNA34/...0_pd_re_dt_dt2

There is also this one at best buy if there are some left in stock. Can't really complain about this price any whatsoever

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western...1218064150518&skuId=9234465&slref=10&slloc=01

 

[SparkyJJO]

Personally I'll never buy a hard drive from Amazon. I love the site, but their packing jobs leave so much to be desired. I'd be worried that the drive would be DOA because of crappy packing.

 

[einstein4pres]

I decided on this one:
http://www.officemax.com/technology/...ct-prod2810003

2 Tb Seagate, 7200 rpm $90
It's in an external enclosure, but I can pull it out. (and put it back in if I have to)

 

[GullyFoyle]

I strolled past the external hard drives on the shelf at my local Walmart and noted "rollback" pricing on most of the drives on the shelf. I might be worth a look if you are in need.
There was a 3 TB WD green drive at the regular price of $150, and 2TB drives at $105. They had a bunch of smaller capacity drives too.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I got a email from amazon this morning advertising these two...not sure how hard it would be to get them out of the enclosure though if you wanted a internal.
Has crap reviews also but there you go some bigger drives that don't break the bank at least.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056YNA1Q/...0_pd_re_dt_dt1

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056YNA34/...0_pd_re_dt_dt2

There is also this one at best buy if there are some left in stock. Can't really complain about this price any whatsoever

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+...ef=10&slloc=01

I bought 2 of that very same 3TB when they were on sale a few weeks ago for $109. I took them both out and put them in my desktop. It's not hard, just pry the front off of the case. and cheaper than the internals even! 7200RPM, 64MB cache!

Realize also that most of the negative reviews are about noise, or the controller stops working. There are videos on the web about it to. If you just take them out and plug them direct people have had much better luck.

 

[goog40]

The initial price hike was because of greed. Not that they paid the new pricing for the hd's and had to sell them higher. Its was only because they 'could' sell them higher.

That's how pricing works in the real world. It's called supply and demand. If the wholesale prices for an item tanked 50% overnight, would you feel obligated to pay the store a higher price just because they paid more for their inventory? Didn't think so.

 

[Cheesetogo]

That's how pricing works in the real world. It's called supply and demand. If the wholesale prices for an item tanked 50% overnight, would you feel obligated to pay the store a higher price just because they paid more for their inventory? Didn't think so.

Except these prices are probably not riding on the actual supply issues so much as the perception that there is a shortage. As others have noted, the actual shortage has not really made its way through the distribution chain yet.

Newegg has taken full advantage of the crisis to gouge as much as possible. It seems unlikely that their 200-300% markups are fair market value. Obviously, customers can respond by simply not purchasing from Newegg.

 

[Jdmathew]

Newegg has taken full advantage of the [HDD shortage] crisis to gouge as much as possible. It seems unlikely that their 200-300% markups are fair market value. Obviously, customers can respond by simply not purchasing from Newegg.

Yes indeed. Thank you college economics! And this is a prime example of why Monopolies are great for business but bad for consumers, not that Newegg is necessarily a monopoly.

Remember this the next time you wish doom on AMD and root for Intel. If AMD loses their competitive edge, Intel can use any excuse to demand outrageous prices on their products. No competition makes a fat and lazy cat.

My question is which would be a better political policy...1. Let monopolies flourish until competitors naturally take back market share... or 2. Legally restrict the operation of Monopolies by forcing price ceilings, fines, settlements, etc

I would probably vote for the first policy because it would spur innovation and business start ups in the long term... I imagine option 2 would be a temporary relief for consumers but would ultimately stunt economic development within an industry. I guess this outlook is what makes me a "smaller governement" type of person and typically Republican, but I'd like to hear your views.

What do you all think?

 

[ZYFER]

Personally I'll never buy a hard drive from Amazon. I love the site, but their packing jobs leave so much to be desired. I'd be worried that the drive would be DOA because of crappy packing.

Maybe, but they always pay the return shipping on DoA items.

 

[Eyeless Blond]

My question is which would be a better political policy...1. Let monopolies flourish until competitors naturally take back market share... or 2. Legally restrict the operation of Monopolies by forcing price ceilings, fines, settlements, etc

I would probably vote for the first policy because it would spur innovation and business start ups in the long term... I imagine option 2 would be a temporary relief for consumers but would ultimately stunt economic development within an industry. I guess this outlook is what makes me a "smaller governement" type of person and typically Republican, but I'd like to hear your views.

This is starting to get a bit afield of the topic, but in reality we've already seen what happens with option 1: the Gilded Age. The way it works is that a large monopoly (or small group of monopolies coordinating between themselves) consolidate their power across the entire country, then when a small startup starts challenging them in one city/town/state they can use the immense wealth that they've gotten from price gouging the country to strangle the startup in its crib. This is where Verizon, AT&T, Time-Warner, Comcast and Cox are right now when it comes to phone, wired internet and TV, and where the wireless industry will soon be headed if AT&T buys T-mobile (followed shortly thereafter with Verizon buying Sprint)

As a side note, the super-conglomerates can also use the money they can now get from squeezing the country dry to bribe politicians into passing ever-more favorable laws for large corporations which also hamper the development of small businesses, such as giving corporations human rights, changing the patent system from first-to-invent to first-to-file, or passing laws which allow large businesses to more easily hide their cash flows from regulators, shareholders, and the IRS. In the 19th century this was called "graft"; now it's called "lobbying".

 

[knightc2]

Personally I'll never buy a hard drive from Amazon. I love the site, but their packing jobs leave so much to be desired. I'd be worried that the drive would be DOA because of crappy packing.

After reading countless reviews of DOA drive and of comments about people opening the boxes only to see a bare drive floating around with little or no cushioning, I'll pass on buying a drive from Amazon.

 

[DudeAbides]

I wonder if this will change pricing in SSD?

 

[Jdmathew]

I wonder if this will change pricing in SSD?

I expect it will. I had thought this and was glad I have bought both my hyperx 120's for 165ea.

 

[locomo]

I wonder if this will change pricing in SSD?

Corsair Force Series 3 60GB SATA III

for $100 - $30(rebate) = $70 + tax

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...20233223-L010D

 

[DudeAbides]

Great price on those 60GB drives! Thanks!

 

[RedWolf]

I bought 2 of that very same 3TB when they were on sale a few weeks ago for $109. I took them both out and put them in my desktop. It's not hard, just pry the front off of the case. and cheaper than the internals even! 7200RPM, 64MB cache!

Realize also that most of the negative reviews are about noise, or the controller stops working. There are videos on the web about it to. If you just take them out and plug them direct people have had much better luck.

I got this extrenal WD 1.5gb yesterday for $59.99. It rang up for $79.99 but the price on the sticker was $59.99. They gave it to me at that price when I showed them the "advertised price" of $59.99. Even in the pre-price hike days that was a good price.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western...lack/2266052.p?id=1218320893530&skuId=2266052

 

[Nunya]

Received this email from Seagate today.

As has been widely reported, the severe flooding in Thailand is a tragic situation for families and businesses across the region. To aid in the relief and recovery efforts, Seagate is donating US$1 million across a few key organizations in Thailand.

With regard to Seagate business operations in Thailand, our component and drive assembly factories are operational and accessible. Our production is not constrained by either internal component supply or by our ability to assemble finished products. Rather, we are constrained by the availability of specific externally sourced components. Seagate now expects to ship 41 million to 45 million hard drives in the current quarter, a change from the prior projection of 40 million to 50 million units.

Throughout the entire industry, demand will significantly outstrip supply at least for the December quarter and the supply disruption will continue for multiple quarters. Unconstrained demand was expected to be approximately 180 million units for the December 2011 quarter. It is now expected that industry shipments will be limited to approximately 110 to 120 million units.

As such, our business priorities are focused on supporting our external component suppliers’ efforts to rebuild the supply chain as quickly as possible, and to work with customers to strategically align their near- and long-term requirements to our production capability. We are aligning our production schedules and product builds to best support both our suppliers and our customers. Our product roadmap has not changed. Continue to refer to the SPP Partner Portal for the most recent roadmap.

Please understand that this is an evolving situation that we are diligently monitoring on a daily basis. Foremost in our minds is the tragic nature of this disaster, and our thoughts are with those personally affected.

 

[Lifted]

Just got an email from my Dell sales rep in response to a request to purchase some desktops... no more SATA drives available over 500GB.

 

[Ns1]

Just got an email from my Dell sales rep in response to a request to purchase some desktops... no more SATA drives available over 500GB.