# Why are the prices of hard drives so high? Will they go down? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396 "2012-03-21T12:28:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/1 "2012-03-21T12:28:28Z")
Since I need a new internal hard drive as well as an external, I was quite shocked when I saw that the prices for 1 TB internal drives start at about 80 € (I’m in Germany) and for external drives at 100 €. A 500 GB external drive by Western Digital I bought last September for 48.95 € now costs 79 €. I heard about the floods in Thailand in 2011 and the scarcity of hard drives on the market caused by them, but that was about a year ago, so I’m puzzled why the prices went up so much since last September. So why are the prices so high at the moment, and is there a chance that they will fall in the near future? ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/2 "2012-03-21T12:50:52Z")
[Floods in Thailand last fall](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-20124788/thai-floods-expect-months-of-hard-drive-shortages/) destroyed a huge percentage of world wide disk drive production capacity. Google “thailand flooding disk drive shortage” for more details. Shortages are expected well into this year. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/3 "2012-03-21T13:02:25Z")
Well, I thought the floods in Thailand had been in the spring of 2011 and was therefore puzzled why the prices went up since last fall. Your link explains it. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/4 "2012-03-21T13:07:19Z")
After hearing dire warnings about the flood’s effect on prices, I was forced to buy several 3TB drives in January. I forget the price, but it was barely higher than 2TB drives last summer. So shop around. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/5 "2012-03-21T15:20:50Z")
They don’t seem any different to me. [Here’s](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ns=p_PRICE_2%7C0&Ntt=2tb+external+hard+drive&N=0&srtclk=sort) a whole bunch of 2TB external drives that start at $129 (€98). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/6 "2012-03-21T15:37:03Z")
Excuse me, but don’t you have to be like under the age of 18 or something to think that $100 is a high price for A MILLION MEGABYTE HARD DRIVE? A million megabyte. My first hard drive held 20 megabytes and cost more. It was a great big deal when prices fell to a dollar per megabyte. 😕 and :eek: and :rolleyes: and :smack: ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/7 "2012-03-21T15:37:33Z")
The prices were actually high enough for me to justify the switch to Solid State Drives when I had to replace some network drives recently. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/8 "2012-03-21T15:45:56Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > They don’t seem any different to me. [Here’s](http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ns=p_PRICE_2%7C0&Ntt=2tb+external+hard+drive&N=0&srtclk=sort) a whole bunch of 2TB external drives that start at $129 (€98). No, they’re still quite a bit more expensive. [Here’s a price graph for NewEgg](http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16822136792?locale=US), which usually has pretty good deals. I normally buy Western Digital Caviar Black internal hard drives. Before the price spice, I was able to get the 2Tb for about $150 (or possibly a little bit less.) I have not been able to find them for under $200 in the last few months. They have gone down significantly since I was last looking (when they were around $250, although that site shows a peak price of $280), but they’re still significantly more expensive than they were. The B&H price for the same drive is $250, and it’s out of stock. For whatever reason, though, the external drives are running much cheaper. That WD 2TB external in the link you put up is $125. However, it was running at $90-$100 [last year](http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16822136471?locale=US) before the price spike, and it appears to only be very recently that the price went down. I had to buy a couple of drives in January, both internal and external, and the prices were about 50% higher than usual for the drives with the specs I need. The cheapest price for a 1.5TB Caviar black internal that I could find on January 10 was $165. These used to go for $100. A 2.5TB WD Elements external, though, ran $160. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/9 "2012-03-21T15:47:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Excuse me, but don’t you have to be like under the age of 18 or something to think that $100 is a high price for A MILLION MEGABYTE HARD DRIVE? > > A million megabyte. My first hard drive held 20 megabytes and cost more. It was a great big deal when prices fell to a dollar per megabyte. > > 😕 and :eek: and :rolleyes: and :smack: Oh, come now. I remember the hard drives of the 80s well enough, but you get used to a certain price point, and when your business expenditures on hard drives and backup all of a sudden jump by 50% or more, you notice it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/10 "2012-03-21T15:52:49Z")
Missed the edit window: ETA: I should say when your expenditure jump by that amount when you were projecting per TB prices to remain constant or drop (like they usually do.) Normally, I put off buying new hard drives as long as I possibly can, as waiting an extra month or two can usually yield you a good 10-20% savings. ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/11 "2012-03-21T16:26:23Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > A million megabyte. My first hard drive held 20 megabytes and cost more. It was a great big deal when prices fell to a dollar per megabyte. That 20mb drive you had (circa 1990?) held your OS, all of your programs, and all of your files. Stuff’s more sophisticated now, and it requires more storage. Just because the prices have fallen dramatically since the days of the dinosaurs doesn’t mean they haven’t spiked now. There were similar price spikes in 2001/02. If you can hold off for 6 months, they should fall back in line. [The historical data](http://ns1758.ca/winch/winchest.html) shows this isn’t unusual, neither are sudden dramatic price drops. A 1 gb Seagate drive cost $849 in 1995. Western digital released a 1.6 gb drive in 1996 that sold for $399. On a per mb basis, that’s a 65% drop in 12 months. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/12 "2012-03-21T16:49:56Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Oh, come now. I remember the hard drives of the 80s well enough, but you get used to a certain price point, and when your business expenditures on hard drives and backup all of a sudden jump by 50% or more, you notice it. > [@anson2995](#): > > That 20mb drive you had (circa 1990?) held your OS, all of your programs, and all of your files. Stuff’s more sophisticated now, and it requires more storage. You kids get off my Internet! ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/13 "2012-03-21T17:13:08Z")
> [@anson2995](#): > > That 20mb drive you had (circa 1990?) held your OS, all of your programs, and all of your files. Stuff’s more sophisticated now, and it requires more storage. Yeah - porn is much higher resolution! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/14 "2012-03-21T17:17:35Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Yeah - porn is much higher resolution! Ah, yes, the days of Commodore 64 8-bit porn. Or, worse, [ASCII porn.](http://www.asciipr0n.com/pr0n/) (It’s a couple links away from anything objectionable.) Those were the days! You had to stand far away from the screen or printout and use your imagination. Kids these days never had it so good. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/15 "2012-03-21T17:19:06Z")
I didn’t notice the pricing so much as it seems there was a very poor selection of drives after the fall floods. ---
**Author:** ![Covered\_In\_Bees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ab992/32.png) [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/16 "2012-03-21T17:21:00Z")
That ASCII porn is hot stuff! It’s a little before my time and now I need to expand my pornographic (heh, graphic) horizons in new and interesting ways! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/17 "2012-03-21T17:22:58Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I didn’t notice the pricing so much as it seems there was a very poor selection of drives after the fall floods. Oh, there was that, too. Walk into a brick-and-mortar like Fry’s or Office Depot and you can see all the empty spots on the shelves where the various hard drives used to be (at least it was still like that in January.) In my experience, that was coupled with higher prices on what was available (supply and demand and all that.) Online, it seemed like every other drive I looked at was “temporarily out of stock” or “limit 1 per order” or restrictions of that nature. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/18 "2012-03-21T17:28:10Z")
> [@Covered\_In\_Bees](#): > > That ASCII porn is hot stuff! It’s a little before my time and now I need to expand my pornographic (heh, graphic) horizons in new and interesting ways! I’m not sure about that. I was happily watching a guy £ing away at some chick’s : but then all of a sudden she squatted down & took a / on him. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/19 "2012-03-21T18:35:54Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I’m not sure about that. I was happily watching a guy £ing away at some chick’s : but then all of a sudden she squatted down & took a / on him. You mean he was !ing her? And as for old projections, I remember Ed Fredkin speaking to my class in 1973 and bravely predicting that some day memory would fall to a penny a bit. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396/20 "2012-03-21T19:59:41Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Excuse me, but don’t you have to be like under the age of 18 or something to think that $100 is a high price for A MILLION MEGABYTE HARD DRIVE? > > A million megabyte. My first hard drive held 20 megabytes and cost more. It was a great big deal when prices fell to a dollar per megabyte. > > 😕 and :eek: and :rolleyes: and :smack: You young whippersnapper! Back when I started things were measured in Kb…and not large numbers of it either! 😃 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-the-prices-of-hard-drives-so-high-will-they-go-down/616396.md?page=2)