Three weeks ago, I thought the Thailand/hard drive situation was bad and had worst-case scenarios in consideration. A week later and the worst of the worst-case didn’t line up with what was becoming reality. It seems like there may be some improvement in drive supply by mid-December, but it’s still disastrous and supplies are not likely to return to previous “normal” levels for many months—possibly even as long as a year.
For those who haven’t been following our coverage of the problem, here it is in a nut shell.
First, Western Digital’s main production complex in Thailand (one that produces about 60% of WD’s output and roughly 18% of the overall world drive supply) was first inaccessible, then literally under water from the flooding. Adding to the problem, there are also many drive sub-component manufacturers also impacted by the flooding; the one most critical to the hard drive industry would be be Nidec. Article Continues…
We just received stock of 
