Data center operators could find Hard Disk Drives (HDD) hard to come by in 2012 as floods hitting Thailand threaten to disrupt 70% of the world’s production of the technology.
The floods are threatening to drive up the cost of HDDs, despite recent shifts in demand which have seen the use of solid state drives grow.
According to UK It reseller Probrand, Thailand’s HDD production lines could be out of action for the next 56 days, causing “massive shortages of this vital product in the first quarter of 2012”. And unlike Japan, Thailand may not have the resources to rebuild as fast as cities in japan.
Probrand spokesperson Iain Bowles the affect could be more devastating on the supply chain than the Japan Tsunami was, given the small amount of stock currently sitting in the supply chain.
He said the IT industry could be facing a shortfall of 20 million HDD units over demand per month early next year. Last quarter alone the industry required 177 million units. “At the start of the floods in Bangkok, the IT industry had four weeks or 28 days of finished disk drive stock in the supply chain,” Bowles said. “In comparison, when the Japan Tsunami struck, component stock in the supply chain sat at over 80 days, enabling recover time before stock would become depleted.
Stock levels in the supply chain act as a cushion for supply continuity, but in this case, the HDD stock ‘buffer’ of finished products is simply too small given most plans will remain under dirty water for some time yet.”
“If the rains stop today, it will be a minimum of 56 days before production can restart. Thai authorities said it will take two to four weeks to pump out flooded areas and that is before any actual clean up can start.
Thailand is home to HDD manufacturers such as Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Toshiba, Fujitsu and Samsung. Thailand has suffered its worst flooding in 50 years in its Southeast regions which include the area of Pathum Thani, near the capital of Bangkok, where many HDD manufacturing plants, including plants of HDD components, are. Toshiba’s HDD manufacturing facility alone is under about 1.5m of water but some facilities, such as Hitachi’s, are still operating.