Notebook hard drives face summer shortage?
updated 11:10 am EDT, Tue May 20, 2008
Notebook HDD Shortage Soon
Computer makers could soon find themselves without enough supply of notebook hard drives to meet demand, according to reports from those inside the storage business in the Taiwan area. The spiking popularity of micro notebooks with 1.8-inch drives, such as the Eee PC 900, is said to be having a ripple effect on stocks larger 2.5-inch disks. As these major producers haven't increased their production to match, they may be unable to supply system builders with enough drives to meet typically high demand during the summer quarter, the reputed sources say.
The report points to US-based Western Digital as an example and asserts that the company's manufacturing output has been spoken for until at least September. More companies are also likely to be involved, although the report doesn't single out others as confirmed.
The market for rotating hard disk drives is limited to a relatively small group of companies beyond Western Digital and includes Japanese firms Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Toshiba, as well as Samsung and Seagate. All of these sell hard drives to the add-on market in varying degrees in addition to shipping drives for use in pre-built computers.
