HDD Crisis Looming Ahead, Two Months Supply Left

The flooding problems of the HDD industry are rising and, with them, concerns that hard disk drive units will suffer from severe shortages starting two months or so from now.

We previously spoke of how the hard disk drive market is about to go through a tough period because of flooded factories.

Western Digital, for example, had to close off two plants, leading to a production capacity drop of about 60%.

This easily makes it the most severely affected, and while Seagate wasn't directly hit, its component suppliers were not as lucky.

Nidec, for instance, closed seven factories, which is a great blow considering that it holds a stake of 80% in the global HDD motor market.

All in all, not many HDDs are being manufactured at the moment and, according to analysts, this leaves the industry with a supply that will last only about two months.

This doesn't, fortunately, mean that HDDs will no longer be available for order starting December.

After all, though the blow to the Thailand operation was great, the country still accounts for 'only' 30% of the global capacity.

It is also a convenient coincidence that, once the holiday shopping season ends around mid-December, HDDs will enter the so-called down season.

With that to slow demand, companies should still be able to meet their orders, especially if their efforts to restore their Thai activities bear fruit.

Unfortunately, this last hope doesn't have much to go on at the moment, as the levels of the water are actually still increasing.

Finally, the analysts speculated that solid state drives may end up filling in for their mechanical counterparts, though their higher prices will limit this.

Either way, if users are wondering whether to go buy an HDD now or wait until later, now would be more convenient since prices are bound to grow as supply becomes strained.