For all of you Industrial PC users out there that have not yet received the message, sourcing hard drives for the next few months is going to be a tough gig. Hard Drive manufacturer Western Digital in Thailand is underwater. In fact, they are actually sending divers in to recover their equipment. This has led to a big demand for Seagate hard drives, which will be hard to keep up with. As a result, availability is scattered and prices have doubled or in some instances, quadrupled.
From what I’ve learned, Western Digital predicts that everything should be back up and running by the end of Q1. With equipment recovery projects going on, along with the outfitting of new facilities, I personally think we will be lucky if this date is attained.
For all Industrial PC users, the bad news is that pricing will be volatile for the next six months. It will be similar to the CPU and RAM shortages of earlier years. On a positive note, companies like ours can still source hard drives as long as they are assembled in an Industrial PC. It’s unfortunately just going to cost more.
If you have any questions or require any assistance with configuring an Industrial PC, please give me a call at 800-830-9523. I’d be glad to help.
