Prices on hard drives have been insane these past few months.
I regret not buying more of them when I had the chance. I actually thought about buying a couple extra drives when they were down at 547KR a piece (about 80 dollars, and dollars don't have a very high rate against KR, so it's even cheaper) but decided not to because I didn't need them at the time... and at the time prices were steadily sinking.
Now, half a year later, the cheapest drive I can find costs 799KR. 799KR is much lower than average, and it took a whole lot of looking to find. It just so happens this specific drive is a Samsung Eco-drive with some nasty glitches that has previously kept most people from buying it. The glitches seem to lie in the case or the firmware and not the drive itself, though, so I thought about buying a drive and putting it in another case (which some people have advised on forums), but then I'd have to buy another case (since I don't have a spare), and then the prices would be up at 900KR minimum.
So... the cheapest drive after that is the WD 2TB for 899 KR, available on the same site, which is still really really cheap compared to market prices elsewhere. If you check price comparison sites you'll be lured into thinking you can get a few for even less, but all shops offering cheaper drives are either out of stock or have a new much higher price. Most places, even the megamarkets, sell hard drives for at least 1000KR, 1500KR isn't uncommon, 2000KR is normal for all shops who seem to be running out of drives. Btw, the drives I speak about are all external. Internal drives are always a bit more expensive.
This is a bit strange because you do get an internal drive + a case when you purchase an external drive. Why should more cost less? I guess it's because some people/companies need large amounts of hard drives and it would be a pain in the butt to buy a bunch of externals and start cracking cases, but still, the price difference is big enough for companies to start cracking cases instead of buying internal drives. But anyway, what I've been spending some thought on this weekend is if I should buy one or two drives for 899KR, or if the prices will plummet after Christmas. Logically the demand should be even larger at Christmas, thus resellers will have less hard drives left after Christmas, and the prices on drives will start rising again until WD and Samsung and Hitachi are back at their regular production rate... which might take some time. Since this is a subject that concerns me I've been doing some research though and I've stumbled upon a couple of myths and truths.
1 ) The large factories have not been damaged by the flood. Production has halted simply because transportation of resources and products between locations is suddenly very difficult or costly.
2 ) There are larger reserves of hard drives than was first anticipated. This is why the prices on drives hasn't kept rising dramatically, but leveled out at around 3x the regular price.
3 ) How some shops can still sell drives at less than 2x the regular price is still a mystery... and they still have stock left. Mysterious, but very thankful! I guess they've all had very large inventories.
Also, 2TB drives are currently the cheapest, regardless of manufacturer or model. There seems to be a lot of WD in stock, but even more of Samsung. Currently these two are the only companies offering competitive prices on the market. 3TB have still not made a breakthrough, maybe because computers have trouble with drives larger than 2TB, so they're slightly more expensive, but in terms of price per GB, drives on 1TB and lower are much more expensive than others. Old reserves of 320GB drives are being sold out at insanely high prices. The price might not seem that high compared to that on larger capacity drives, but if you think about how much capacity you get for your money, it's almost on par with expensive SSD drives. 1,5 TB drives were high in stock for a while but it seems customers bought up the whole stock. So, conclusively, 2TB sells cheapest right now.
Another interesting thing is that hard drives seem to be much cheaper here in Sweden than in the rest of the world. I can't say for sure about neighboring countries, but I've been browsing through American and English web-shops and the prices there are almost twice as high as they are here. Not that I'm complaining about it. :)
Did I buy a couple of drives, you may be wondering? Nope, I decided to wait out the prices. Worst case scenario I'll have to start using an old 500GB drive I have lying around, but I reckon I'll be able to last well into the next year if the ones I have don't give me any trouble. Cyberdevil over and out.