Need More Storage? Hard Drive Prices Reportedly Set to Drop Next Month

Are you starting to run low on storage space? Before you bite the bullet and pay an inflated price for another hard drive to store your expanding collection of lolcats or whatever else it is that's hogging your HDD, you might want to consider hanging tight for another month. If you can, you could end up saving as much as 10 percent on your HDD purchase.

According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, the Taiwan market is getting ready to drop the price of hard drives by around 10 percent at the end of April. It's a move that, in part, is intended to promote sales, as buyers have been hesitant to stock up on storage ever since severe flooding in Thailand disrupted the HDD manufacturing business and ultimately drove prices up.


In the third quarter of 2011, HDD makers supplied the market with between 170 million and 180 million units. But after the floods hit, that number went down and has been slowly recovering. When the second quarter of 2012 comes to a close, HDD makers are expected to have shipped up to 150 million units before returning to 170 million to 180 million units in the third quarter.

However, don't expect prices to suddenly return to pre-flood levels, even as the supply of hard drives returns to normal. According to DigiTimes, increasing production costs will keep pricing higher than what they were last year.