I work in distribution (Canada) and pre floods, a 2TB Samsung was an all time low of $69USD, a 500GB Seagate was about to hit $31 USD.
during the week of the floods, (although a humanitarian disaster, but opportunity for price gouging occured, blown way out of proportion, with nothing to say about it) when the buying frenzy happened, the price of 2TB went up 5x fold to $345, and allocation just seized.
The 500GB were also selling 5x fold at near $150.
Today, the prices are approx 2.5x than what used to be, and apparently, that is how they will stay, from now on, until the next magnetic medium breakthrough is achieved. (no lunger a rush, see below)
Also, with the fall of Bittorrent, no one will need larger than 1TB harddrives anymore, so enjoy the new price of HDD, and kiss innovation rate goodbye.
Enjoy your ipad3's sheeple.
p.s you should have seen what some customers were paying for Enterprise class drives (SAS, SS, RE4 drives) , they went up near 7-8x fold, and are almost still there today. They are reverting back to cheaper Sata ones, and will pay to replace those, instead of paying the premium for (hard to find) SAS.
By the way, all this harddrive pricing, it is fixed. And guess by who? That's right, the Asians that are dictating our economy in NorthAmerica. Our marketing backbone people are spineless jellyfish.
so, whoever is this mathematical genius that states 28%, I believe he meant 280%
yes, supply and demand is at play, but it is speculative shorted supply, mixed with real demand.
This comment was edited on Feb 13, 2012, 09:18.