It looks like hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers have yet to recover from the damage caused by last year’s monsoon floods in Thailand. Instead of year-on-year prices falling as we’ve come to expect, vendors are asking for higher prices for hard disks at this year’s IT Show.
Whether you’re hunting for Western Digital, Toshiba, or Seagate branded HDDs, prices are generally up across the board.
The 1TB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex portable HDD, for instance, is selling for S$189, up from S$139 at COMEX barely six months ago. The price of the Seagate GoFlex Desk desktop HDD almost doubles from S$99 last September to S$179 today.
The situation doesn’t seem likely to ease any time soon. Market research firm IDC predicts that supply shortages will affect consumers into 2013.
If you have no urgent need for an external HDD, maybe it will be best to postpone that purchase until prices drop to pre-flood levels.
Head over to CNET Asia for a list of affected HDDs and the difference in price between COMEX and now.
(Photo credit: matsuyuki, Flickr Creative Commons)
