The truth about the skyrocketing price of hard drives: China’s agent sellers increase prices by the hour (Source: Times Finance)
Sino-Singapore Jingwei Client, April 22 (Chang Tao) “4200 yuan is already the diving price, I beg the boss to get my goods in seconds, and I urgently need to withdraw funds.” On the evening of April 21, Changsha, Hunan’s hard disk “fell” Xiaoxin The above information was published in a QQ group. Two days ago, on April 19, seeing the price of the hard drive hit a new high, Xiaoxin, who had a purchase channel in his hand, stocked 700 16T hard drives of a certain brand at a price of 4550 yuan. However, I never thought that I copied the copy on the “half of the mountain”, “Nowadays, it is difficult to get a 4200 16T hard drive. I may be stuck.” 
Photo courtesy of interviewees Xiaoxin’s storage of hard drives at home Chia is on fire, the price of hard drives has doubled The popularity of the hard drive market is mainly related to a cryptocurrency called Chia. According to data, Chia was registered and established in August 2017, with the goal of developing a platform that can optimize blockchain and smart transactions. According to an unnamed person in the currency circle, unlike most cryptocurrencies that use computing power to mine, Chia uses idle disk space on the hard drive, and Chia miners’ income is proportional to storage space. “The logic of hard disk mining can be simply understood as: First, fill the hard disk with lottery numbers. The larger the hard disk, the more numbers stored, and the greater the probability of winning.” The person explained. It is understood that there are currently a variety of classification methods for hard disks, which can be divided into enterprise, consumer, and monitoring levels according to usage scenarios. According to the form, it can be divided into mechanical hard disk and solid state hard disk. Hard drives used for mining generally refer to enterprise-level mechanical hard drives. Among them, enterprise-level hard drives with a storage space of 8T and above are most suitable for mining. A recent investigation by a China-Singapore Jingwei reporter found that with the popularity of Chia coins, the demand for hard drives has risen, and the prices of hard drives have also risen across the board. On the e-commerce platform, large-capacity mechanical hard disk brands Seagate and Western Digital 6T and above enterprise disks are currently out of stock. Seagate JD’s customer service said, “The large-capacity hard drives are basically sold out, and the products are actively stocking and purchasing, and the specific arrival time has not been notified for the time being.” 
A certain brand of large-capacity hard drives are out of stock Source: e-commerce platform
Some institutions that have rigid requirements for hard disks have also been affected. Wang Kai (pseudonym) works in a design institute in Shanghai. He told reporters from China-Singapore Jingwei that his design institute was recently “locked” by Chia hard disk mining.
“The design institute has some projects that need to be archived, so we basically use 16T hard drives. The entire company has four to five thousand people, and the storage requirements are very large. Now the e-commerce channel hard drives are out of stock. Put the reserved hard disk on top, but it will run out sooner or later, and I don’t know how to solve it yet.” Wang Kai said.
New latitude and longitude in the hard disk data map
In offline channels and scalper markets, many people sell large-capacity mechanical hard drives at high prices. A reporter from China-Singapore Jingwei visited an electronic city in Beijing on the 19th and learned that after the Chia coin exploded, the price of each enterprise-level mechanical hard disk increased by about 600 to 3,000 yuan, depending on the size of the storage space.
“Western Digital’s 6T hard drive is priced at 1,450 yuan, 8T at 2,900 yuan, and 16T at 6,100 yuan. The price changes every day. If you want it, make a decision quickly. It may be gone after a round.” Shouted a certain seller. Before the price increase, the prices of ordinary 6T, 8T, and 16T enterprise-level hard drives were around RMB 800, RMB 1,300, and RMB 3,300, respectively.
The price went through a roller coaster in 3 days, and someone invested more than 3 million and was stuck
Why does the popularity of Chia coin drive the price of hard drives? The above-mentioned people in the currency circle believe that the number of individual purchases of hard drives has a limited impact on the market, mainly because some institutions have bought them in large quantities, and there are also a number of “dead masters” stockpiling. “Many people invest several million and buy hundreds of hard drives at a time.” The person said.
However, what makes these “bad masters” unexpected is that the price of hard drives has taken a roller coaster in a short time. On April 21, Xiaoxin told reporters from China-Singapore Jingwei about the experience that caused him to “burst his mind” in recent days.
On April 19, the 16T hard drive market price came to above 6,300 yuan. Seeing the hard drive price soaring all the way, Xiaoxin, who has a purchase channel in his hand, couldn’t sit still. “The usual price of 16T hard drives is around 3,500, but within a few days it has risen to more than 6,000 yuan. I expected it will definitely increase. I stocked 700 pieces at a price of 4,550 yuan. I didn’t expect to be trapped just after two days.” Xiaoxin Say.
On the evening of April 21, Xiaoxin posted a message in a solid-state hard drive trading group, “The new Western Digital 16T hard drive is priced at 4,200 yuan and can be mentioned at any time.” Then, a group of friends replied under this message, ” Dude, have you lost the price?” Xiaoxin replied, “I’m in the pit, just begging the boss to get my goods in seconds, and I need to withdraw funds urgently.”
Xiaoxin told reporters from China-Singapore Jingwei that the price of hard drives started to drop rapidly after reaching the highest point on the 19th. “Take a 16T hard drive as an example. The price on the 20th was between 5500 yuan and 6300 yuan, and it was properly lower than 4500 yuan on the 21st.” Xiaoxin said that 700 hard drives have sold more than 200 pieces at a price of 4500 yuan. Between 5330 yuan, under the current market conditions, even if it is lower than the purchase price, it can’t be sold. If the price can’t rise in the future, it will be completely smashed.
Another person who has experienced the hard drive price roller coaster is Zhang Heng (a pseudonym). A few days ago, Zhang Heng bought about 200 8T hard drives from multiple e-commerce platforms. The hard drive that could sell for 2,600 yuan a piece on the 18th is now quoted at 1,950 yuan and no one cares about it.
Without business, Zhang Heng intends to continue to cut prices. “The price of the hard drive was originally made by us. I just sell it if I can make money. I don’t know that the price will continue to fall tomorrow (22nd).” Zhang Heng said.
Why did the price of hard drives fall rapidly? Zhang Heng said that this may have something to do with the dealer’s delivery of goods.
Gao Cheng (pseudonym) is the person in charge of a component distributor in Fuzhou. He told the Zhongxin Jingwei reporter, “The previous market was messed up by dumping goods. I started selling goods on the 20th. 8T Seagate Enterprise The first-class hard drive came up for 1780 yuan, which had a great impact on the “fellows”, and the price soon dropped.”
Gao Cheng revealed that “the previous high price increase was largely due to the fact that the agents were squeezing the goods, or there were not many goods in the original channel, and they were all hoarded by the’inverted master.’ Now that the channels start to release the goods, the price will naturally decrease. ”
Data map provided by the interviewee
Shengzi (pseudonym) is a Dell dealer, and he has been extremely busy these past two days. “ Isn’t the hard drive hot? We are working overtime to dismantle the host and take out the hard drive. The 8T Seagate Enterprise grade we sold is only 1,800 yuan, which is different from the reversed one, we are our own inventory. ”
On the 22nd, the price of hard drives continued to fall. At noon of the same day, Shengzi quoted in a hard disk trading group, “8T Seagate enterprise-level dive, 1,650 yuan.” Someone commented below, “Is there any 1550 reported?” (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)
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