[vertex-four]

In that particular case, there was a shortage - it was extremely difficult for even large businesses to get hard drives. The issue was that hard drive manufacturers were (are?) clustered around an area that got flooded.

[uptown]

Or the shortage was caused by the NSA filling their new data-center with as much capacity as it could get its hands on, covertly, and the flood was used as a convenient cover-story for the shortage.

[Bluestrike2]

Maybe the NSA even managed to engineer the flood itself? Yes, that sounds about right.

[brador]

It is a possibility that might have made the situation worse, but there really was a flood and many HDD factories were flooded and closed.