Catastrophic floods in Thailand are causing a ripple effect in the hard drive world.While heavy rains and flooding isn’t exactly new in Thailand, a third of the country has been inundated by water and over 360 people have been killed due to the worst flooding in over 50 years.
As a result, Thailand-based hard-drive manufacturing facilities for Western Digital and Toshiba have been shut down. According to reports, some of the facilities have been flooded with water running up to 5 feet deep.
The damage doesn’t stop there either.
Nidec, the company that supplies the small motor that spins the disk in hard disk drives, has also had to shut down two of its manufacturing plants due to the flooding. Nidec’s halt in production could have far greater consequences considering they supply the motors used in an estimated 70-80% of the world’s hard drives, including those produced by Western Digital, Toshiba, Seagate and Hitachi.
Although Western Digital and Toshiba have facilities based elsewhere – like the US and Malaysia – which they can utilize in order to continue producing hard drives, 60% of Western Digital’s hard drive production is located in Thailand, along with half of Toshiba’s production numbers. Either way, there will be a drop in the number of hard drives that both companies pump out.
As a value-added-reseller, we’re already starting to feel the sting of a hard drive shortage in the distribution chain as some hard drive prices have already rose or are now out of stock.
Hopefully the waters begin to recede so Western Digital and Toshiba can assess the damage, replace or repair damaged equipment and get things back up and running.
Until then, prepare to fork over more money for hard drives in stock or wait until they’re actually back in stock to begin with.
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Photo Credit: pobre.ch
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