[voxelizer]

I've noticed refurbished HDD prices creeping up recently. I used to grab 10TB drives from goharddrive for around $80, but they’ve been out of stock for months. Now most other sellers are listing them closer to $150. Has anyone else seen this trend too?

[epistasis]

I've only been looking in the past month, but yes, at about that ratio too, when I come across posts on Reddit from last year.

This is especially painful for what I want to buy a ton of right now, RAM. I find all these year old posts with people talking about DDR4 at $0.70/GB, and it's twice that now.

I don't know why, but the obvious explanations are a combination of the dollar devaluation and tariffs. Both of these are ongoing, so strap in for even higher prices soon, I guess?

[fragmede]

Of actual uses of the Sherman antitrust act, starting in 2002, DRAM manufactures were investigated and then pleaded guilty to price fixing to the US. Eventually Hynix, Infineon, Micron Technology, Samsung, and Elpida all pled guilty.

Following that, a regional sales manager for Micron pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in 2003, and then in 2004, Infineon also pled guilty. Hynix Semiconductor took their turn in 2005 and plead guilty and paid a fine. 2005 Samsung pled guilty in connection with the cartel and paid a fine.

Next up in 2006, Sun Woo Lee, the Senior Manager of DRAM at Samsung Electronics, entered into a plea bargain for price fixing. This barely seems to have slowed down his career, however, as after 8 months in prison he was promoted to President of Samsung Germany in 2009, and then President of Samsung Europe in 2014.

Unfortunately for the DRAM cartel, in 2010 the EU joined the party and fined everyone for what they did in 2002. Micron snitched and did not get fined though.

In 2018, Samsung, Hynix, and Micron got new charges of price fixing levied at them. In Jan 2018, prices of DRAM were triple their 2016 low.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRAM_price_fixing_scandal

Yeah I have no idea why they could be high.

[epistasis]

That could explain Ram but how about drives at the same time? Just a shortage?

[tkfoss]

> Ram but how about drives at the same time

whats the difference? You see industry leaders getting away with it, so you do it as well.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Not only that, but also 'greedflation' by traders anticipating more demand than supply.

Actually slowly rising since about 2011, induced by shortages (of critical components) due to flooding in Thailand (Seagate/WD), some supplier of so called 'sliders', motors (Nidec) restructuring/mergers of corporations like Showa Denko/Resonac, leading to fears that the supply of thin films for the platters goes bust, some other supplier of platters itself goes bust, and on and on. Not to forget sarscovidious² hick-ups of all sorts of supply-chains. Then came AI, and the datacenter boom. Endless 'opportunities' loom...

[orionblastar]

Everyone is going to SSDs now for faster access. Having a SATA drive as a secondary drive to store downloads on. https://www.mamedev.org/ The MAME emulator, for example, takes up at least 10TB for all of the ROMs, Software disk images, Compressed Hard Drives, and ect.

[xmprt]

What I've heard is that there's been an undersupply of HDDs in the market for the last few years.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> I used to grab 10TB drives from goharddrive for around $80, but they’ve been out of stock for months.

Same. Bought 6 hgst 10TB @ $84/ea in mid Dec. By New Year's they were $110 and in short supply.

[abeindoria]

March 2024 price for 12 TB refurb : $76.

The one I bought literally this month : $169.

Same WD drive from gHD.

[saulpw]

Inflation? Tariffs?

[epistasis]

Yes and devaluation of the dollar:

https://www.morganstanley.com/insights/articles/us-dollar-de...

People had better get used to the economic reality of no longer being the economic superpower of the world.

[ffsm8]

Isn't a devaluation the same as inflation, just measured against other currencies?

Basically inflation measures against itself at an earlier time, devaluation measures against other currencies at the same moment. So it both describes the fact that the currency in question is using purchasing power, measured from different points of view.

But I'm not knowledgeable on the topic, I just mentally stumbled a little when reading this thread which seemingly (to my interpretation of what was written) made them sound like different concepts entirely.

[epistasis]

It's inflation fornouschains foreign products, but also makes us products cheaper to the rest of the world which means it's an incentive for exports.

Might have had some interesting effects on the economy if we didn't simultaneously have tariffs making it so that 1) it's hard to buy the machinery to increase US industrial capacity, and 2) nobody wants to invest in the US economy because tariffs cause economic slowdowns.

[Dylan16807]

That doesn't add up to a doubling in price.

[epistasis]

The price response in secondary markets (refurbished drives here) can be much bigger than the direct effects caused by increases in price for newly produced goods, I think? If the price goes up for new drives, purchasers of new drives hold on to current product for longer, and they are the suppliers to the secondary market. Also, more people might buy from the secondary market than from the primary market due to the price increase, creating a greater supply pressure and price response than is seen in the primary market. I guess it all depends on the shape of the demand curve.

[abeindoria]

I am not sure if Inflation and Tariffs even both together make the price >2x in ~1 year

[20after4]

The tarrifs are pretty big, depending on the country (for china, they are huge) and inflation is also pretty high. Things are only going to get worse with the current administration intent on tanking anything that remains of our economy. We are in big trouble in the US.