Even though the flood waters in Thailand have mostly receded, the flooding caused by record monsoon rains this year has had a significant impact on the storage industry. Almost one-third of the world’s hard drive manufacturers facilities were under water this fall and some areas remain flooded. As a result, storage device manufacturers have been challenged with keeping up with demand, driving up the cost for storage by as much as 50 percent.

Low supply and higher prices present several challenges for the security industry, which requires enterprise-class hard drives that are designed for continuous, 24/7 operation. Not all hard drives are created equal. While consumer grade hard drives can often be less expensive, security industry recording requirements need to be more reliable and to continuously read and write multiple video streams simultaneously. As a result, security Hard Disk Drives should never be low-cost consumer drives such as those used in a desktop or laptop computer, as these components were not intended to process information 24 hours a day.

Systems integrators need to be vigilant when it comes to buying hard drives for their customer’s digital video storage needs. Here are a few simple tips to follow:

• It’s important to know where your products are coming from and to work with a reputable supplier in the industry that will maintain product integrity. The cheapest storage device is not always the best.
• Since most integrators don’t have the financial backing to maintain large inventories of hard drives, be sure to maintain a dialogue with your vendor about your storage needs for future projects. Provide your solution provider with a list of upcoming projects so you can get your order in early, avoid wait times and perhaps save some money.

It will take several months before the hard drive storage industry returns to normal and inventory levels to recover. In the meantime, it’s important for Tyco Security Products customers to know that we are working closely with our hard drive storage device suppliers to maintain inventory levels of our various storage solutions and to ensure that we continue to deliver quality products to the marketplace. 

Lets us know how you have been affected by the hard drive shortage by leaving a comment below.