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Hard Drive Prices Skyrocketing

SignBurst PCs

SignBurst PCs

New Member
My distributors have been sending me photos of the Western Digital facility in Thailand underwater. Since the flooding started, hard drive prices have doubled. It is crazy. It seems to be the higher quality drives that are the most affected.

Western Digital is out of commission and Seagate is having trouble getting parts to build drives. Not that I would touch a Hitachi drive, but they are affected as well. It looks like it is going to be rough until they recover (hoping for shipments in January).

As of today, our prices are up $100 on three of our systems, but it looks like it is going to get worse. This is the first time that we have ever had to raise prices. All computer manufacturers are/will be affected.

Just FYI for those looking at a computer soon.
 
WildWestDesigns

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
SignBurst PCs said:
My distributors have been sending me photos of the Western Digital facility in Thailand underwater. Since the flooding started, hard drive prices have doubled. It is crazy. It seems to be the higher quality drives that are the most affected.

Western Digital is out of commission and Seagate is having trouble getting parts to build drives. Not that I would touch a Hitachi drive, but they are affected as well. It looks like it is going to be rough until they recover (hoping for shipments in January).

As of today, our prices are up $100 on three of our systems, but it looks like it is going to get worse. This is the first time that we have ever had to raise prices. All computer manufacturers are/will be affected.

Just FYI for those looking at a computer soon.
Click to expand...

Just posted the reuters article in another thread.
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
I've noticed this myself this week. I had a customer requesting quotes a couple weeks back for multiple computers, and just had to have a meeting and discuss what was happening with the hard drive market as it will result in an additional $2,000 cost if he orders them right now...

Sad to say, but it's almost more economically efficient to buy a SSD instead of a hard drive right now!
 
A

AnotherSignManiac

New Member
wow I didn't even notice!, but I went to check it out where I use to buy parts and WOW I can't believe that price hike, looks like an average of 60$ raise
 
The Vector Doctor

The Vector Doctor

Chief Bezier Manipulator
choucove said:
I've noticed this myself this week. I had a customer requesting quotes a couple weeks back for multiple computers, and just had to have a meeting and discuss what was happening with the hard drive market as it will result in an additional $2,000 cost if he orders them right now...

Sad to say, but it's almost more economically efficient to buy a SSD instead of a hard drive right now!
Click to expand...

Huh? A 500gb SSD drive will run you $800
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
The Vector Doctor said:
Huh? A 500gb SSD drive will run you $800
Click to expand...

Heh, sorry I should have clarified, I was meaning more economically efficient for price/performance standpoint for a main system's drive. A lot of times we get systems (and you find many pre-built systems) that have like 1 TB to 2 TB hard drives when the end user is never going to come close to using that space and could easily instead have enough space to just use a 120 GB SSD.
 
The Vector Doctor

The Vector Doctor

Chief Bezier Manipulator
choucove said:
Heh, sorry I should have clarified, I was meaning more economically efficient for price/performance standpoint for a main system's drive. A lot of times we get systems (and you find many pre-built systems) that have like 1 TB to 2 TB hard drives when the end user is never going to come close to using that space and could easily instead have enough space to just use a 120 GB SSD.
Click to expand...

Yeah it probably depends on the type of user. My guess is that people who are dealing with large photoshop files may have a hard time justifying the time savings versus losing disk space

Would it make more sense to have the OS on an SSD and then archive to SATA or externals?

I don't deal with large files, but if I did I would have a hard time justifying SSD since they would fill up so fast and cost so much. Maybe as the technology progresses and prices come down. But not now. 500gb SSD at $800 vs $50-100 for an equivalent sized SATA.
 
WildWestDesigns

WildWestDesigns

Active Member
The Vector Doctor said:
Yeah it probably depends on the type of user. My guess is that people who are dealing with large photoshop files may have a hard time justifying the time savings versus losing disk space

Would it make more sense to have the OS on an SSD and then archive to SATA or externals?

I don't deal with large files, but if I did I would have a hard time justifying SSD since they would fill up so fast and cost so much. Maybe as the technology progresses and prices come down. But not now. 500gb SSD at $800 vs $50-100 for an equivalent sized SATA.
Click to expand...


I have 2 SSDs stripped and 1T Sata drive. The SSDs are about a step up in size as what was mentioned (120GB).
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
The real usage of SSDs in workstation environments that makes them effective is to store data off of the SSD. Basically, all you want on your SSD drive is your operating system and programs. If you have lots of artwork files, databases, images, documents, etc. those should all be saved onto a separate disk drive. That's the most effective is a combination of solid state for the performance and speed, and large capacity mechanical drives for the storage of large amounts of data.

Most people get by using a SSD between 60 GB and 120 GB, and again if you just have your operating system and your programs installed on that drive, you don't have to worry quite as much about it filling so quickly.
 
OldPaint

OldPaint

New Member
i remember paying a $100 for 4 megs of ram, and thought i got a great deal. same time a 40 meg hard drive was almost $200!!!!
 
choucove

choucove

New Member
When it comes to SSDs, there are some that are just leaps above the rest, and others that just plain aren't worth the money. The Kingston ValueSeries is one that has unfortunately had a history of instability or quality issues, as well as performance that is sometimes much slower than a mechanical hard drive.

If you're looking for a solid state system, you really should stick with the leading brands out there as they have a proven track history of quality and support. The top name brands out there currently are Intel, OCZ, and Crucial. I've personally used Intel and OCZ SSDs before and have never had problems with them. Crucial is becoming a pretty big player as well, as they have drives matching the leading performance of the OCZ Vertex 3 drives but at lower costs.
 
royster13

royster13

New Member
Let me re-phrase my question.......I think I was too brief...

At present I have 2 hard drives.....OS, programs and some data on Drive 1....Drive 2 has mostly stock art, national logos, etc.....

Can I install neww SSD and still keep Drive 1 without having to re-install programs and use it as an alternate place to boot from?.....
 
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