Hard Drive Makers Still Reeling from Earthquake

Posted 05/10/2011 at 1:38pm | by Paul Lilly

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Should you find a hard drive that fits your needs at a price you can afford, consider pulling the trigger rather than putting it off until later. Reports are coming that Japan's earthquake back March is still wreaking havoc with the hard drive supply chain, and that this will continue throughout the month of May. As it stands, both Western Digital and Hitachi -- two of the top 5 HDD makers -- are operating on tight supplies.

News and rumor site DigiTimes says upstream chip suppliers Texas Instruments and Renesas Electronics have kicked things into high gear trying to restore capacities after the earthquake, but even so, sources within the HDD industry say the supply gap of hard drives isn't likely to fully recover in the second quarter.

At issue is the fact that the primary chip suppliers for HDDs had their production lines thrashed by the earthquake, leaving it up to secondary suppliers to step in and save the day. However, these secondary chip suppliers are ill equipped to produce the number of parts HDD makers need.

This all translates into higher prices at the register. Some HDD prices have already gone up 10-15 percent, DigiTimes says, and they probably won't come back down until assembly lines are running smooth again. On the bright side, most hard drives are dirt cheap to begin with, so even a 10 percent increase isn't likely to have you cutting corners in other parts of your build.