Hard drive prices... gone up?

[lithodora]

I don't buy a lot of hardware expect about once a year, so I don't follow prices or trends throughout the year. Each year I expect to get more bytes for less dollars. Every year it has been consistent, but this year all the drives are more expensive than previous years.
Last year I bought this 2TB for $99, now it is $169. Two years ago I bought a 1.5TB for $109, now it is $179.

Anyone notice this and know why?


~~~~EDIT~~~~

Due to the recent flooding in Thailand, we are temporarily unable to receive any hard drives from our suppliers.

I found this on an online store. Seems a likely reason, but is that why? If so then the normal pricing should return when supply lines are reestablished fully and I should wait to make my HDD purchases this year.

 

[DRosencraft]

I don't buy a lot of hardware expect about once a year, so I don't follow prices or trends throughout the year. Each year I expect to get more bytes for less dollars. Every year it has been consistent, but this year all the drives are more expensive than previous years.
Last year I bought this 2TB for $99, now it is $169. Two years ago I bought a 1.5TB for $109, now it is $179.

Anyone notice this and know why?


~~~~EDIT~~~~

Due to the recent flooding in Thailand, we are temporarily unable to receive any hard drives from our suppliers.

I found this on an online store. Seems a likely reason, but is that why? If so then the normal pricing should return when supply lines are reestablished fully and I should wait to make my HDD purchases this year.

Yes, that is correct for the most part. Back in September/October Thailand and that region of the world got hit pretty hard by seasonal rains, leading to severe flooding. Around 40% of all HDDs are made in that region, and these factories were all flooded. In November they started drying out and restarting some of the plants. The shortage of drives for the 4th quarter is supposedly aroound 150 million units. Prices should eventually come back down, but estimates are that it will be at least a year before supply is back stable, and of course prices wont start to drop unless supply is stable again. You'll find some conspiracy theories claiming its a manufactured issue and that the manufacturers or retailers are just price gouging, but whatever the case, it's gonna be a while before prices are back to their old level like this past summer. You should head over to Tom's news area, there should be a number of stories all about it over there.