News - WD confirms HDD price rises due to rare earth shortage

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China has a virtual monopoly on many key elements and is restricting supply.

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Read more.

D'oh. :(

Sounds as though it shouldn't affect the overall trend too much though. 2 & 3TB drive prices will likely continue to fall faster than this price rise will affect them.

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According to HEXUS sources in the channel, hard drive giant Western Digital has begun notifying its partners that they can expect to thee the price

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Lisp?

Seeing as REEs are used in pretty much every gadget available these days, wouldn't this be bumping the price of all tech, not just hard drives?

Japan has recently found a new plentiful source of REEs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_890121.html

As long as SSD prices are not affected , we are all good ?

That's actually a good idea on China's part, means more people will start up businesses in China and so more people there will get jobs.