Production of HDD severely disrupted by Thai floods

The supply of hard disks (HDD) will be seriously disrupted and could see the cost of the devices rise following last week's massive floods in Thailand.

The factories of two of the world's biggest manufacturers, Western Digital and Seagate were seriously damaged by flood water. The disaster, which has affected huge parts of the country is causing even more substantial issues to the hard drive industry than last year's earthquake.

Two of Western Digital's factories were affected and the company said it would not be shipping any supplies of HDDs from the country until 1 November.

In a statement the company said that "it now expects that the flooding of its Thailand facilities, combined with flood damage to the company's supply chain in Thailand, will have significant impact on the company's overall operations"

Only one of Seagate's factories was directly affected by the floods, and it is still shipping but the affects on Thailand's infrastructure is having an impact.

"Given the volatility of the situation it is unclear what the magnitude of the supply chain disruption will be to Seagate's hard disk drive output from its Thailand operations.

"Seagate is actively managing its supply chain and factory output to align production capabilities and optimize its build schedule to meet customer requirements.

"As a result of the disruption caused by the floods, Seagate anticipates hard drive supply will be constrained throughout the current quarter."

Although Toshiba and Hitachi have not been directly affected by flood water damage to their facilities, Toshiba's factory is closed because of the Thai Governments evactuation orders.

What doesn't help the companies is the fact the authorities have given no indication on when this order will be lifted.

In addition component level supply for HDDs has also been severely disrupted which will also have an adverse effect on production.

Origin Storage Solutions therefore foresees the price rising sharply and product going into constraint as panic buying sets in.

It said it would be doing everything in its power to hold pricing; and give continuity of stock and would update all customers on the on-going situation.