Severe flooding has decimated several hard drive manufacturing plants and hard drive component plants in Thailand. It is estimated that as much as 65% of the world’s hard drives and hard drive components are manufactured in the region affected by the floods. Approximately 32,000,000 fewer drives than usual are expected to be produced this quarter.
As a result, hard drive prices have dramatically increased and shortages (across all market segments) have already occurred, along with some panic and hoarding. Most retailers are either running out of drives, or limiting drive purchases on remaining inventory to only one per customer. Here’s an update of the situation and what we’re doing to make sure your projects can continue.
Current Situation
Several drives that Polyline carries contain Hitachi components. Luckily, the Hitachi plants are on higher ground and haven’t been immediately affected by the floods. Our manufacturers tell us they have Hitachi components in transit to manufacturing facilities. So production has slowed down, but still ongoing.
However, other manufacturers are now seeking these components. Higher demand and reduced supply of key components has led to price increases. Although professional hard drive prices have gone up significantly, they are still available.
Polyline is working with our manufacturers to obtain as much inventory as we can. We’re now allocating hard drives to ensure as many people/companies as possible are able to continue their current projects. Because of the current volatility, hard drives will have to be priced by the order and unexpected increases may occur.
What You Can Do
If you use hard drives as a deliverable medium, switch to another format acceptable to your customer, such as LTO, HD Videotape, DVD or Blu-ray.
If you are archiving content on hard drives, stop this practice. Hard drives are not a viable archival medium. Any drive is subject to failure, especially if it has been sitting idle for long periods of time. Transfer the data on your drives to LTO, Blu-ray or another viable archival medium. This will not only provide a stable, long-term archive of your content, it will also free up your existing supply of hard drives for re-use. (If you don’t have an archival system in place, call your Polyline sales rep at 1-877-807-8095 and we’ll help you explore some options.) We have some new solutions you may find surprisingly affordable, especially if you are reusing your hard drives, and not purchasing new ones.
Be open to the idea of getting alternative brands or models of hard drives. We partner with the best manufacturers whose products are made for the demanding requirements of professional video and audio production. A drive may be available that may not be the exact model you’ve been using, but has the same capacity, interfaces and other features you need. And you can rest assured that it will be a top-quality drive, if we recommend it. Be sure to
download our Hard Drive Cross Reference Chart here to help you make more informed decisions on which drives may work for you.
Solid State Drives
Consider SSD (Solid State Drives). Solid state drives are mostly unaffected by the flooding in Thailand. And many are fully manufactured in the United States. Because they have no moving parts, they are significantly faster, more durable and use less energy than traditional hard drives. And they are available in all the same interfaces, such as USB 2.0/3.0, eSATA, FireWire 400/800 and soon, Thunderbolt. However, solid state drives also have lower capacities and are generally more expensive. As the prices of traditional hard drives increase, we expect solid state drives will become a more affordable option. We also expect a greater demand for solid state drives will lead to lower prices due to economies of scale. Just like the cost of other forms of media has decreased with increased demand, we anticipate seeing the same effect on solid state drives during the upcoming quarters.
The Future
Hard drive supplies will steadily diminish through January 2012. The first quarter of 2012 is going to be especially challenging, with the worst of the shortages occurring then. All our manufacturer partners do not expect the worldwide production capacity and resultant supplies to return to pre-flood levels until the 2nd half of 2012, probably not until June or July, if all goes well with the recovery efforts. Several manufacturers have decided to relocate manufacturing to other areas of the world. This strategy may take longer to implement, but will help to provide redundant production sites, and lessen the impact of future disasters on hard drive production and supply.
Let Us Help
If you’ve never considered Polyline before for hard drives, now would be a good time. We have sold many thousands of hard drives over the past year, and are extremely strong partners with the best manufacturers such as G-Tech, LaCie, Avastor, OWC and more. If anyone has hard drives available throughout this crisis, we will. We can keep you informed as the situation changes; provide alternatives and a current price quote for what drive options are available. Polyline is here to support you.
If you need additional information or need a current quote on hard drives, visit us at
http://www.polylinecorp.com/harddrives/. Here, you can let us know your particular needs, and a sales rep will get back to you right away with availability, a quote and more. Otherwise please call us at 1-877-807-8095.
Had A Hard Drive Crash?
We Can Help You Get Your Content Back!
We have partnered with DriveSavers, the leading provider of data recovery for crashed hard drives. We provide a significant discount off DriveSavers regular drive recovery fees, and we will waive the $200 evaluation fee for any drive sent for recovery. Many people have had their data recovered by DriveSavers and were able to get back to work quickly once DriveSavers recovered their data. For more info on DriveSavers, go to
www.PolylineCorp.com/crash/.
