At this point, all of the major external storage subsystem manufacturers have announced price increases in response to the devastating Thailand floods, and the subsequent impact on hard drive manufacturing. At the same time, many companies in the consumer electronics space have warned about revenue targets in the wake of component shortages, including Intel in December.
To date, however, I haven’t seen any reporting of hard drive shortages affecting the enterprise disk market, but I am now seeing that first hand. I am currently involved in at least four customer projects, across multiple manufacturers, where drive lead times are stretching out until March. These are for orders that are either currently being processed, or that were placed in December.
In order to make sure you aren’t severely impacted by these same shortages, I suggest you add the following contingency elements into any storage projects you are currently undertaking or planning for:
- Work with your partner and manufacturer early to understand how your design is affected by the component shortage. Not all drive types are affected equally, it seems that large 7.2K drives are the hardest hit
- Make sure that you are providing enough lead time for equipment delivery in your project plan and stakeholder reports. The two week lead time that is the norm in the industry is not currently in place.
- Make sure you work with procurement to understand the impact of order placement timing as regards to your manufacturer’s availability.
- Do a quick health check on your storage environment, and ensure that you have at least a 6-10 week buffer in available space from the time you could place an order. If you don’t have that buffer, accelerate your projects accordingly and raise the issue to your change control board.
I would also suggest paying closer attention to the earnings announcements from the various storage manufacturers in January and February to understand their expectations for the duration of these shortages.
Great post John.
joee