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Hard-disk shortage hits consumer outlets

The fallout of the hard-disk drive shortage is now raining down on consumers, according to analysts and resellers.

The most immediate impact is rising prices and falling inventory of standalone drives, in the wake of the flooding in Thailand where roughly half of the world's drives are made. "Prices are going up. We're running out of stock and no longer taking back orders," said a sales representative at PC Connection, a major online reseller.

"We have half the stock we used to have," the sales rep added.

A sales representative at CDW, another major … Read more

Hard disk shortage will get worse: Piper Jaffray

The scarcity of hard disk drives will only get worse in the coming weeks and months, according to an analyst at Piper Jaffray.

"We could run out of drives by the end of November," Piper Jaffray analyst Gus Richard said in an interview Tuesday while discussing the shortage in the wake of the severe flooding in Thailand, where roughly half of the world's production of HDDs takes place.

"Availability is really going to tighten up. I'm seeing prices quoted anywhere from up 10 to up 60 percent," he said. And Richard said he is … Read more

PC forecast cut in wake of HDD shortage: analyst

Barclays Capital has slashed its PC growth forecast for the fourth quarter due to the shortage of hard disk drives and continued weakness in the PC market, according to reports.

The investment bank cut its global PC growth forecast for the fourth quarter to 4.3 percent from 7.2 percent "due to continued weak demand and a shortage of hard drive disks (HDD) resulting from the flooding in Thailand," according to a number of Asia-based outlets such as the China Post, citing a Barclay's research note.

And the bank didn't stop there, lowering its full-year … Read more

Hard drives could get scarce: Apple, analysts

The humble hard disk drive may become a more precious commodity in the coming months, according to analysts and Apple.

Apple CEO Tim Cook made this very clear this week in the company's earnings conference call, referring to the impact of the floods in Thailand. "Like many others, we source many components from Thailand and have multiple factories that supply these components. There are several factories that are currently not operable, and the recovery timeline for these factories is not known at this point," he said.

Cook continued. "We would say that our primary exposure is … Read more