Massive flooding in Thailand is impacting availability and pricing of hard disk drive (HDD) components inside security video storage and retrieval systems. Depending on the country of origin of the devices, the fallout is lack of availability of some product from security manufacturers and price increases.

Based on interviews by Today’s System Integrator, the crunch may at least last through April 2012 and the price increases, well, could be more lasting, maybe even ever-lasting.

Flood waters that have besieged parts of Thailand and affected the production of hard drives could possibly become a problem for our industry around February or March 2012. If the DVRs and NVRs you are installing require specialized hard drives, and they were being built at the flooded factory, there well could be equipment shortages and/or greatly increased costs for these devices.

How many people are up to date on the intense flooding in Thailand? If you aren't, you probably soon willbe, especially if you have any connection to products requiring a hard drive.