The flooding in Bangkok, Thailand where a factory which makes components for hard disk drives has been affected and caused global prices of these components to soar in the last week. They appear to be up to three times what they were previously and this is having problems both for computer manufacturers and for people like myself who repair computers.I don't keep much stock of these commodity items, generally purchasing exact replacements for the computers who need these items due to hard disk drive crashes, a not unlikely event. This makes the repairs often uneconomically viable especially if a new copy of Windows needs to be purchased as well due to no recovery disc creation and no CDs in the box so to speak. Add at least a couple of hours of my labour and you almost approach the price of a new laptop.
I also see that computer manufacturers are also increasing their prices quickly, though they must have a reasonable stock of drives.
Another effect is the decision whether to use an SSD in a new PC build. The speed benefit is huge and the price difference is now reduced, so if you don't need a large capacity from day one then the SSD option is much more attractive. You can always add a hard disk drive later when presumably the prices are more reasonable.
It is amazing how quickly the prices have gone through the roof as the suppliers take advantage of the panic in the market. Imagine if car prices did the same.
