External Hard Drives

[cowslip]

so you agree - the current prices in Thailand are the results of gouging and not shortages?

I do not know what to tell you. There is a shortage in drives through the supply chain, that has driven PC makers to cut down their Motherboard and other component production between 10% to 20%. Hard drive prices through the OEM market has risen about 10% on average.

I now understand your question is specifically to the distribution market segment ONLY and not industry wide. Distribution market segment is small to a HDD manufacturer (less than 10%), and they do not set the pricing. Pricing and inventory control is left to the retailer. Companies like Seagate, WD, HGST do not set the price of the HDD you buy at Pantip or any other IT mall. I would assume that most of these retailers are sitting on a chunk of inventory preflood impact, prior to the 10% price hike. They see an opportunity to make money. So you're asking if a Thai businessman is trying to rip you off, I think that question answers itself and I do not think it is the first time that has happened.

Please also bear in mind that HDD manufactured today will not hit the market until January. Everything goes out by Sea freight. Yes, computer sales will be impacted during the new year time frame. That is coming from HDD manufacturing impact in November. And this market segment is seeing a big shortage. Dell, HP, Acer do not get their drives from Pantip.

Which is pretty much what I said in the early posts............however I don't go along with your racist summation of "Thai" businessmen - I am saying that the people in charge of running Banana and other IT retailers and suppliers are probably operating a CARTEL and colluding to gouge prices. I doubt if they do it because they are Thai.

[bangkokburning]

RedNl seems to have stated the issue quite clearly - numerous times.

If you don't like the price don't buy it. As the drives sit, the price will go down. These companies must move their inventories, if it sits its dated and if its dated it can't be sold. So while maybe Banana might be at the moment taking a bit of a gamble - why don't you get yourself down to Pantip and have a look about.

I replaced a 2.5" 250gb notebook drive a few weeks before the floods hit BKK for the same price as I found on the Internet.

There are loads of small vendors all over the place with drives waiting to sell you. They will not be hoarding their stocks or trying to gouge you. They will be happy to unload their inventory as quickly as possible. Guaranteed.

Stop whinging, stop looking at some chain store price and especially online prices in Thailand (the worst).

Go, bargain and get yourself a new drive! :-)

=================================================

Lop: Bog standard drive about B2700 from Seagate and appears to be in stock, Amazon. 2TB @ B4000.

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 1 TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive STAC1000100 (Black)

Edited November 28, 2011 by bangkokburning

[cowslip]

RedNl seems to have stated the issue quite clearly - numerous times.

If you don't like the price don't buy it. As the drives sit, the price will go down. These companies must move their inventories, if it sits its dated and if its dated it can't be sold. So while maybe Banana might be at the moment taking a bit of a gamble - why don't you get yourself down to Pantip and have a look about.

I replaced a 2.5" 250gb notebook drive a few weeks before the floods hit BKK for the same price as I found on the Internet.

There are loads of small vendors all over the place with drives waiting to sell you. They will not be hoarding their stocks or trying to gouge you. They will be happy to unload their inventory as quickly as possible. Guaranteed.

Stop whinging, stop looking at some chain store price and especially online prices in Thailand (the worst).

Go, bargain and get yourself a new drive! :-)

you clearly have no idea what is going on and have offered a totally facile argument

Edited November 28, 2011 by cowslip

[lopburi3]

This is the three times US price increase.

Source: camelegg.com

[bangkokburning]

Cowslip - I am not even going to get into it, I have posted already too many times on this topic.

Lopburi - You cherry picked an expensive drive that may for any number of reasons indeed have tripled in price. That is a pretty high end drive and not exactly what most consumers would be first to grab - Barracuda drive w/ 32mb cache(!) ?

[cowslip]

Cowslip - I am not even going to get into it, I have posted already too many times on this topic.

you certainly have!

Lopburi - You cherry picked an expensive drive that may for any number of reasons indeed have tripled in price. That is a pretty high end drive and not exactly what most consumers would be first to grab - Barracuda drive w/ 32mb cache(!) ?

[McGarty]

At Tucom yesterday I bought an Acer External HDD 500GB for 1990 Baht. Seagate and other known drives seem to have risen by 500 Baht since I bought one a couple of months ago.

There were other models available but not names I recognise. One of which was a 500 Gb under 2000 Baht also.

[cowslip]

At Tucom yesterday I bought an Acer External HDD 500GB for 1990 Baht. Seagate and other known drives seem to have risen by 500 Baht since I bought one a couple of months ago.

There were other models available but not names I recognise. One of which was a 500 Gb under 2000 Baht also.

Tuk.com where - in Pattaya?

Which dealer?

[McGarty]

At Tucom yesterday I bought an Acer External HDD 500GB for 1990 Baht. Seagate and other known drives seem to have risen by 500 Baht since I bought one a couple of months ago.

There were other models available but not names I recognise. One of which was a 500 Gb under 2000 Baht also.

Tuk.com where - in Pattaya?

Which dealer?

Yes, Pattaya. Had two Acer units.

JJIB. 3rd (?) floor at the back.

[NanLaew]

At Tucom yesterday I bought an Acer External HDD 500GB for 1990 Baht. Seagate and other known drives seem to have risen by 500 Baht since I bought one a couple of months ago.

There were other models available but not names I recognise. One of which was a 500 Gb under 2000 Baht also.

Tuk.com where - in Pattaya?

Which dealer?

Yes, Pattaya. Had two Acer units.

JJIB. 3rd (?) floor at the back.

They also had loads of Seagate internal HD's in the glass display case but only for sale with complete built-up system.

[NanLaew]

BUT....I am seeing via Froogle that a 2TB drive can be had for as little as US54-80 at this very moment.

If you actually click on the items that you froogled, you will find that most of the lowest priced options are either out of stock or double the price. All available items are limited to 1 or sometimes 2 per customer regardless of the price.

[NanLaew]

These companies must move their inventories, if it sits its dated and if its dated it can't be sold.

Where is the "Sell by" date printed on a hard drive?

Thanks,

NL

[NanLaew]

I am suggesting on the evidence of retail price increases that Banana IT and other companies in Thailand are engaging in price gouging.

In the UK last month shopping for hard drives. Regular stores have bugger all but Maplins had loads. They also had a notice on the shelf indicating that due to Thai floods, the availability AND market price would be unpredictable and that all published 'specials' on hard drives were no longer applicable.

Is that gouging?

As it happened, I really needed a 1Tb HD but the display prices were already around 140 quid so I chose a 360Gb for about 50 quid. On checking out, the sales guy said that they had just placed those warning stickers on the HD display rack today but it didn't come into effect till after midnight (this was late afternoon). So he looked up the 'old' list and said I could have a 850Gb for 45 quid. I opted to buy two!

When I got home, I opened the boxes and inside each 850Gb labeled box was a short note from Maplin congratulating me on my 'free upgrade' to a 1Tb hard drive!

[katana]

Does anyone know, all other things being equal, which will have the longer life span - an internal or external hard drive?

My thinking was, presumably the internal drive will be spinning more and therefore have more chance of failure than an external drive which will only spin when you occasionally turn it on to access data.

[RedNIvar]

Does anyone know, all other things being equal, which will have the longer life span - an internal or external hard drive?

My thinking was, presumably the internal drive will be spinning more and therefore have more chance of failure than an external drive which will only spin when you occasionally turn it on to access data.

All things being equal, it would be an external hard drive as it operates at a lower duty cycle. But then again, not all is equal. The specs for external drives are much more relaxed.

[cowslip]

I am suggesting on the evidence of retail price increases that Banana IT and other companies in Thailand are engaging in price gouging.

In the UK last month shopping for hard drives. Regular stores have bugger all but Maplins had loads. They also had a notice on the shelf indicating that due to Thai floods, the availability AND market price would be unpredictable and that all published 'specials' on hard drives were no longer applicable.

Is that gouging?

As it happened, I really needed a 1Tb HD but the display prices were already around 140 quid so I chose a 360Gb for about 50 quid. On checking out, the sales guy said that they had just placed those warning stickers on the HD display rack today but it didn't come into effect till after midnight (this was late afternoon). So he looked up the 'old' list and said I could have a 850Gb for 45 quid. I opted to buy two!

When I got home, I opened the boxes and inside each 850Gb labeled box was a short note from Maplin congratulating me on my 'free upgrade' to a 1Tb hard drive!

firstly it's not Thailand.

Secondly that is a reasonable business practice and similar to predictions made by the Aussie press etc....however an increase of 50 to 100% in the Banana IT stores IS gouging.

Of purse a lot of the "unpredictability" will be due to the Thai wholesalers attempting to manipulate the market and make as much as they can out of the present situation.

Edited December 6, 2011 by cowslip

[seedy]

Bought a 500-GB Seagate here in CNX last week - 2690 Baht. Price comparable to Canada last fall.

Saw 1.5-TB for I think around 6XXX-Baht

Power Buy - Big C

[cowslip]

Bought a 500-GB Seagate here in CNX last week - 2690 Baht. Price comparable to Canada last fall.

Saw 1.5-TB for I think around 6XXX-Baht

Power Buy - Big C

A 500 GB was available for about 1990 baht

the WD 2TB wireless was 6000 baht then up to over 10k now about 9k - they seem to be trying their luck.

Edited December 7, 2011 by cowslip

[seedy]

Saw an Acer at the same store - 1900 Baht

Went with Seagate as I own a couple of their external HDD's and never a problem.

Plus 3 year warranty - worth ??? here !!!

[NanLaew]

I am suggesting on the evidence of retail price increases that Banana IT and other companies in Thailand are engaging in price gouging.

In the UK last month shopping for hard drives. Regular stores have bugger all but Maplins had loads. They also had a notice on the shelf indicating that due to Thai floods, the availability AND market price would be unpredictable and that all published 'specials' on hard drives were no longer applicable.

Is that gouging?

As it happened, I really needed a 1Tb HD but the display prices were already around 140 quid so I chose a 360Gb for about 50 quid. On checking out, the sales guy said that they had just placed those warning stickers on the HD display rack today but it didn't come into effect till after midnight (this was late afternoon). So he looked up the 'old' list and said I could have a 850Gb for 45 quid. I opted to buy two!

When I got home, I opened the boxes and inside each 850Gb labeled box was a short note from Maplin congratulating me on my 'free upgrade' to a 1Tb hard drive!

firstly it's not Thailand.

Secondly that is a reasonable business practice and similar to predictions made by the Aussie press etc....however an increase of 50 to 100% in the Banana IT stores IS gouging.

Of purse a lot of the "unpredictability" will be due to the Thai wholesalers attempting to manipulate the market and make as much as they can out of the present situation.

So, when a retailer in the UK marks up a product by 50-100% and posts a disclaimer that it is due to the Thai floods, that is "a reasonable business practice." However, if a Thai retailer marks up the same product for the same reason but doesn't post a disclaimer (although we know the floods are happening), that is "attempting to manipulate the market and make as much as they can out of the present situation."

I understand now.

I think...

[NanLaew]

Bought a 500-GB Seagate here in CNX last week - 2690 Baht. Price comparable to Canada last fall.

Saw 1.5-TB for I think around 6XXX-Baht

Power Buy - Big C

A 500 GB was available for about 1990 baht

the WD 2TB wireless was 6000 baht then up to over 10k now about 9k - they seem to be trying their luck.

The biggest demand these days is for HD's of 1Tb and greater; mostly driven by the growing market for networked storage, multimedia and the fact that more people are deleting less junk! So, the biggest demand is for large capacity drives and therefore the biggest shortage is... for large capacity drives. The most drastic price increases therefore have been with.... that's right, large capacity drives. Nobody really wants anything less than a 500Gb HD these days and it's a buyers market for the smaller ones... where they can be found.

Nobody is 'trying their luck' here. Genuine market shortages forcing genuine market prices. Maybe you have problems because the reason for the high price is being given to you by a Thai person, in broken English. If they printed it in English or hired a native English speaker to tell you, would that make it any easier and more believable?

[cowslip]

I am suggesting on the evidence of retail price increases that Banana IT and other companies in Thailand are engaging in price gouging.

In the UK last month shopping for hard drives. Regular stores have bugger all but Maplins had loads. They also had a notice on the shelf indicating that due to Thai floods, the availability AND market price would be unpredictable and that all published 'specials' on hard drives were no longer applicable.

Is that gouging?

As it happened, I really needed a 1Tb HD but the display prices were already around 140 quid so I chose a 360Gb for about 50 quid. On checking out, the sales guy said that they had just placed those warning stickers on the HD display rack today but it didn't come into effect till after midnight (this was late afternoon). So he looked up the 'old' list and said I could have a 850Gb for 45 quid. I opted to buy two!

When I got home, I opened the boxes and inside each 850Gb labeled box was a short note from Maplin congratulating me on my 'free upgrade' to a 1Tb hard drive!

firstly it's not Thailand.

Secondly that is a reasonable business practice and similar to predictions made by the Aussie press etc....however an increase of 50 to 100% in the Banana IT stores IS gouging.

Of purse a lot of the "unpredictability" will be due to the Thai wholesalers attempting to manipulate the market and make as much as they can out of the present situation.

So, when a retailer in the UK marks up a product by 50-100% and posts a disclaimer that it is due to the Thai floods, that is "a reasonable business practice." However, if a Thai retailer marks up the same product for the same reason but doesn't post a disclaimer (although we know the floods are happening), that is "attempting to manipulate the market and make as much as they can out of the present situation."

I understand now.

I think...

two points

No you don't understand

and secondly you don't appear to think.

Where is the UK mark up?

[cowslip]

Bought a 500-GB Seagate here in CNX last week - 2690 Baht. Price comparable to Canada last fall.

Saw 1.5-TB for I think around 6XXX-Baht

Power Buy - Big C

A 500 GB was available for about 1990 baht

the WD 2TB wireless was 6000 baht then up to over 10k now about 9k - they seem to be trying their luck.

The biggest demand these days is for HD's of 1Tb and greater; mostly driven by the growing market for networked storage, multimedia and the fact that more people are deleting less junk! So, the biggest demand is for large capacity drives and therefore the biggest shortage is... for large capacity drives. The most drastic price increases therefore have been with.... that's right, large capacity drives. Nobody really wants anything less than a 500Gb HD these days and it's a buyers market for the smaller ones... where they can be found.

Nobody is 'trying their luck' here. Genuine market shortages forcing genuine market prices. Maybe you have problems because the reason for the high price is being given to you by a Thai person, in broken English. If they printed it in English or hired a native English speaker to tell you, would that make it any easier and more believable?

Noi language problems

Apart from that I have photos of the previous prices and bought product - I have 6 Ext HDDs - 500 gb to 1 tB.

I took photos a while back as they were gouging after the tsunami took.

THe percentage price increase predicted by the market "experts" is about 10% - there is no way this translates into a 100% increase on the retail.

[NanLaew]

two points

No you don't understand

and secondly you don't appear to think.

Where is the UK mark up?

Maybe I misunderstand what you call gouging or markup.

No need to get an attitude because you don't understand the REAL market pricing versus some published 'experts' view on pricing.

What part of the advertised 'new price' of around 140 quid for a 1Tb HD versus the 'old price' I paid of 45 quid for a 1Tb HD did you miss?

Post-tsunami gouging? Where on earth did you see that?

Edited December 8, 2011 by NanLaew

[cowslip]

two points

No you don't understand

and secondly you don't appear to think.

Where is the UK mark up?

Maybe I misunderstand what you call gouging or markup.

No need to get an attitude because you don't understand the REAL market pricing versus some published 'experts' view on pricing.

What part of the advertised 'new price' of around 140 quid for a 1Tb HD versus the 'old price' I paid of 45 quid for a 1Tb HD did you miss?

Post-tsunami gouging? Where on earth did you see that?

"real market" - in Thailand? you are just being more and more clueless.

Edited December 14, 2011 by cowslip

[NanLaew]

two points

No you don't understand

and secondly you don't appear to think.

Where is the UK mark up?

Maybe I misunderstand what you call gouging or markup.

No need to get an attitude because you don't understand the REAL market pricing versus some published 'experts' view on pricing.

What part of the advertised 'new price' of around 140 quid for a 1Tb HD versus the 'old price' I paid of 45 quid for a 1Tb HD did you miss?

Post-tsunami gouging? Where on earth did you see that?

"real market" - in Thailand? you are just being more and more clueless.

You started it! I'm just trying to keep up with you.

Edited December 17, 2011 by NanLaew

[cowslip]

two points

No you don't understand

and secondly you don't appear to think.

Where is the UK mark up?

Maybe I misunderstand what you call gouging or markup.

No need to get an attitude because you don't understand the REAL market pricing versus some published 'experts' view on pricing.

What part of the advertised 'new price' of around 140 quid for a 1Tb HD versus the 'old price' I paid of 45 quid for a 1Tb HD did you miss?

Post-tsunami gouging? Where on earth did you see that?

"real market" - in Thailand? you are just being more and more clueless.

You started it! I'm just trying to keep up with you.

Well you don't seem to be able to...why don't you read the OP? and start again?

[jaysun]

i don't know if i'm just unlucky, but i have soo many drives fail that i purchase here in thailand. minorly off topic, but do they sell lower quality hardware here than what's exported? just seems strange, drives are manufactured here, but still cost more than it does in the usa (even before the flooding, about 20% more), plus, it seems to be less reliable (about 30% of my drives fail due to bad sectors or failing SMART)

[RedNIvar]

i don't know if i'm just unlucky, but i have soo many drives fail that i purchase here in thailand. minorly off topic, but do they sell lower quality hardware here than what's exported? just seems strange, drives are manufactured here, but still cost more than it does in the usa (even before the flooding, about 20% more), plus, it seems to be less reliable (about 30% of my drives fail due to bad sectors or failing SMART)

Distribution drives are the same everywhere. No reason for drives here to be of a lower quality. Unless you're comparing distribution drives against sold to the OEM, then yes there is a difference in performance.

[NanLaew]

Well you don't seem to be able to...why don't you read the OP? and start again?

Why? Have you changed anything? Or are you still maintaining that hard drive prices outside Thailand won't go up in price till next year and thus the local shops are out to rape the pockets of the poor farangs?

Maybe you missed my post when I went shopping for HD's in the UK last month and they were ALREADY double the price and publicly stating the Thailand flood situation as the cause.

Give up while you think you are ahead.