Storage Market Perspective

September 7, 2006

Market Perspective

The HDD market has become more active in the last two weeks of August, particularly the desktop PC drives. Horizon has seen demand increase for the most popular capacities from 40GB and up. This is a major turn of events especially when the market nearly staggered during the summer months due to anemic demands. As the PC industry prepares for the seasonal demand in Q4, the increasing activity may be indicative of what lies ahead as the industry moves into September.

Notebook Market 2.5"

The 2.5” market has remained largely unchanged. SATA drives adoption rates are increasing and capacity continues to increase as Horizon has seen with the introduction of Toshiba’s new 200GB 2.5” drive. Horizon is also seeing the introduction of new technologies including the use of perpendicular technology and offerings of CE (consumer electronic) specific drives which offer better multimedia performance and lower acoustics for quiet operation. Manufacturers are also increasing shipments of ruggedized drives for automotive applications, although the majority of ruggedized drives are sold directly to OEMs and not readily available in distribution.


1.8" Microdrives

Horizon is seeing an increase in requirements for the 1.8” microdrives.  Pricing has stabilized on the 40GB, 1.8”, but demand has been for the 80GB versions which commands a high price and has limited availability in the secondary market.  These drives should remain hot as new ipod models are unveiled later this month and competing technology from Microsoft & other retailers hit the market for the Holiday season.

Desk Top 3.5”

Demand is still strong with 40GB/7200RPM & 80GB/7200RPM due to the shortage in the market recently.  Shipments from WD appear to be about a third of what they were six weeks ago.  On the distributor channel Maxtor 40GB drives are quite limited compared to Seagate and WD. Hitachi 80GB and 250GB PATA are showing signs of allocation, comparatively more than other manufactures. For 300GB capacity, Horizon is seeing WD and Maxtor PATA supplies tightening on the market.  Pricing for 120-200GB pricing has become very tightly grouped now and only separated by about $6.  Horizon has seen demand for 400GB SATA increase over the past weeks, as well.

Enterprise (SCSI)

The SCSI market continues to be uneventful.  The only activity seen at this time is around Maxtor drives as lead times have stretched to three weeks due to Maxtor evaluating and making adjustments to their product mix.  We have seen attractive excess opportunities for OEMs to take advantage of.

For availability and pricing contact: 949.595.8244 or visit www.horizontechnology.com

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