Could the rise in popularity of netbooks / sub-notebooks such as the HP 2133 Mini-Note cause an overal shortage in the global supply of 2.5-inch hard drives later this year?
That’s what DigiTimes is reporting – with the increase in manufacturing of these devices, plus the time of year, it could lead to a shortage if HDD manufacturers don’t increase capacity:
There are only a few global suppliers of 2.5-inch HDDs, including Seagate Technology, Western Digital (WD), Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Fujitsu and Toshiba, and makers of HDD components have not expanded their production capacities, the sources noted. Consequently, global supply of 2.5-inch HDDs may not be able to meet fast growing global demand in the third quarter, a traditional strong sales period for PCs, the sources pointed out.
Makes sense in a way – many of these 8.9-inch devices such as the HP 2133 and the MSI Wind are being purchased as additional laptops/ notebooks which means that for every one of these sold, there is still going to be a 13-inch or larger laptop sold, so there’s two hard drives for one person right there (not to mention the increasing popularity in portable USB-based drives).
Read: DigiTimes