Hard Drive Inventory Shortage

by Maxant Technologies Inc
November 4, 2011
Hard Drive Inventory Shortage

Massive flooding in Thailand is bringing a significant portion of the industry’s hard drive production to a halt, sparking concerns about its impact on the IT industry that depends on the devices and is already causing constraints in supply to the channel.

Western Digital, which has a significant portion of its hard drive manufacturing in Thailand, has been forced to curtail production in that country and put both storage OEM’s and reseller customers on allocation.

We expect this situation to be in effect for the next several months as clean up efforts take shape and global inventory begins to stabilize.

Our purchasing team has been working diligently to put an action plan in place, reaching out to our vendors to secure as much product as possible.

What this means for our customer:

For the foreseeable future, pricing of hard drives will be fluid - we have already seen significant price increases on 160GB, 250GB, 500GB and 1TB SKUs.

The sale of hard drives, separate from a configured system, will be extremely limited and subject to change daily as the situation improves or deteriorates.

MediPort quotes will be valid for only 10 days. Expired quotes need to have pricing re-verified and requoted.

If you know that you have MediPort orders that will need to be placed in the next 90 to 120 days it may be a good idea to send them in as soon as possible to make sure that you establish your place in line as allocations become available. At this point in time we cannot guarantee the usual 3 to 4 week lead time that has been the norm. Sending your orders in early will lock your pricing in for that order only. We do not know how prices will be affected by this shortage but we do anticipate increases.

For more information on this situation, please contact our Sales Manager at 847.588.2280.


7540 N. Caldwell Avenue, Niles, IL 60714
Phone: 847.588.2280 Fax: 847.588.1920
www.maxant.com