2 responses to “What you can do about soaring hard drive prices”

1. 

   rc primak November 17th, 2011 at 22:04

   Woody, there’s much more to this story than you have posted. I am casually looking through listings, in stock at Amazon.com. With the Western Digital Desktop external hard drives, the 1TB size (very popular) is skyrocketing, actually surpassing the price of the 1.5TB drive. Both are much less impacted by the price spike than the portable 500GB and smaller external hard drives. The gouging seems to be for the most popular drive sizes, and the most portable form factors (also very popular). Classic panic buying patterns. It’s consumers who are hoarding, if this pattern holds.

   I am still checking prices and patterns, but the bricks and mortar retailers also seem to be creating the illusion of shortages and gouging on the remaining drives they are admitting to having in stock. Maybe it’s their suppliers, but this looks very much like an effort to induce panic buying to boost Holiday Season profits.

2. 

   rc primak November 17th, 2011 at 23:36

   Update:

   Best Buy sold me a Seagate Free Agent 500GB desktop drive for $50.00 (US Dollars) on line. One per order does not mean one per customer. Just place two or more orders. Please don’t hoard.