The recent devastating floods in Thailand, in addition to causing hundreds of fatalities and leaving thousands homeless, have also brought many manufacturing plants to their knees. For anybody who uses a computer, this has a very direct impact: many hard drive plants were located in the flooded areas, and even those who were away from the area were affected as some parts (most notably spindle motors) were built by factories that are now under water. An up-to-date report of the situation can be found via Google News. The demand and supply law was immediately brought into the picture. A 7200-rpm 2 TB hard drive, that just three weeks ago cost about €80, now costs in excess of €200. Substitute that with your currency of choice if you so prefer, but prices all over the globe have doubled, and in some cases even tripled. I have spoken with resellers I’m familiar…
Tag: hard drive
I, like many others, have had my fair share of hard drive crashes; and like many others, I have my tastes when it comes to brands. My favorite brand is Seagate, my least favorite brand is Maxtor. This poses a big problem because they joined into Seagate Maxtor, so I usually lean towards Western Digital these days. The point is that you can love a brand as much as you want, but hard drives can and will fail. And will do so at the least appropriate the moment.
The best case scenario is that you have a very recent backup. The worst case scenario is that you don’t have any backup, and you lose valuable data, from either an emotional or professional point of view. Often, from both. This usually leads to nervous breakdowns, extensive cursing, going through a list of past, present and future deities to blame, and possibly weeping. I’ve done all of that, and I’m not ashamed of admitting so.