Do Rising Hard Drive Prices Mean You Should Buy A SSD Right Now?

Prices for hard disk drives are increasing dramatically because of the tragic flooding in Thailand. Some of the world’s major HDD manufacturers based there have been forced to close factories, creating supply problems and price hikes. So what should you do?

First, you might consider holding off on a new hard disk drive purchase until prices stabilise again, which, according to the Financial Times, might not be until late next year. If you really need a new drive now, you can use a site like Camelcamelcamel, which tracks Amazon prices, to check price changes and see if the HDD price you find is a good deal or not. (The Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB Desktop Hard Drive, having jumped from a low of $US69.99 to $US149.99 since October 11, is not a great deal on Amazon now, for example, but you might be able to find it cheaper elsewhere with some effort.)

Now is probably a good time to look at SSDs, which haven’t so far been affected by the floods because they’re made elsewhere. You’ll also want to keep an eye on SSD prices, though, and perhaps act soon because limited HDDs available could create more demand for SSDs. (We’ve previously mentioned Tom’s Hardware roundup of the best SSDs for the money to help you get a jump on a good SSD deal.) We think buying a SSD is one of the best values for your tech dollar anyway.

[via MakeUseOf]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


6 responses to “Do Rising Hard Drive Prices Mean You Should Buy A SSD Right Now?”

Leave a Reply