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Shipping Estimates on iMacs with 2 TB Hard Drives Slip to 5-7 Weeks Amid Shortages

the8thark said:
If this is true. Why does the Apple Australia site still say 2-4 days?
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I was about to say the same thing. on the Australian Store an iMac was a 2TB drive is Ships: 2-4 business days . May be the Australian Store store is yet to be updated? but I thought all online stores were updated together. My other theory is that Australia and a few other "smaller" countries are such a small part of Apple overall business that they have adequate supplies of the 7-Pin 2TB HD for these smaller markets. although this theory seems unlikely.
 
Thoughts on how this might affect people who already placed a BTO configuration like myself.

For days it has shown "preparing for shipment" but I ordered back when it said 2-4 days.

Did I just get roped into waiting until February for delivery without my knowledge? I obviously would have waited until then to place my order.
 
If there's a 2TB shortage for iMacs now, you can expect 2TB shortages for most everything soon. First Mac Pros, then Time Capsules. Get-em now while they're still availble.
 
coolspot18 said:
Yes, but that's in a NAS or enclosure right?

I totally agree.
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One of several things Apple gets consistently wrong.

With HD prices where they are they must be able to buy larger and faster drives for almost the same money than what they put in there now.

I have so far changed all my 5400 Apple HD's in MBP, MB's and MacPro to the fastest and largest available drives from OWC.

Never a problem, except the imac is not worth opening to do this.

So, against Apples clutter philosophy you have to have an extra HD someplace.

Makes no sense!
 
swmr said:
Did I just get roped into waiting until February for delivery without my knowledge? I obviously would have waited until then to place my order.
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You'd be a lot better off waiting until February to get the new revision, anyway (if you can). The past 3 revisions have been 231-280 days, which means we're highly likely to see an iMac refresh between January and March.
 
The cost of raw drives have doubled in the past two months, and still climbing. I'm into HD video, so I always have blank 2tb 3.5" SATA drives handy. They were only $70 two months ago. $170 today and going up.

Whey can't the hard drive industry diversify, instead of all production in one place?
 
marmotmammal said:
The cost of raw drives have doubled in the past two months, and still climbing. I'm into HD video, so I always have blank 2tb 3.5" SATA drives handy. They were only $70 two months ago. $170 today and going up.

Whey can't the hard drive industry diversify, instead of all production in one place?
Click to expand...

Hit Costco yesterday, and their aisle of hard drives was only ten feet wide - with a sign saying that due to the Thailand floods "only 2 per customer" - and the prices were double that of a few weeks ago.

Marmots are cool - having run into them (literally) on weekend trips into the Haute Savoie....

CO_Marmot04.jpg
(click to enlarge)

Too bad that this poor marmot is the three-legged variety....
 
Last edited:
swmr said:
Thoughts on how this might affect people who already placed a BTO configuration like myself.

For days it has shown "preparing for shipment" but I ordered back when it said 2-4 days.

Did I just get roped into waiting until February for delivery without my knowledge? I obviously would have waited until then to place my order.
Click to expand...

I ordered my BTO with a 2TB drive on Wednesday, it shipped out today (Friday). Think you will be fine. We probably ninja looted the last 2... =)
 
Peace said:
Does the iMac use 3 1/2" hard drives ?


[edit]

Figured it out :
From iFixIt :

The WD Caviar Blue drive is a non-standard SATA drive. The power connector features 7 pins, rather than the standard 4. The drive also has non-standard firmware. This means you can only use Apple's own hard drives and not any standard after-market SATA drive.

Must be shortages of the 2TB Blue 7-Pin HD

[/edit]
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The 7 pin flat connectors are the standard for SATA drives. For power supply compatibility, early SATA drives also had the 4 pin PATA power connectors along with the 7 pin connectors.

The Caviar Blue is used for it's lower operating temperatures due to its reduced power consumption, but has slower performance than the Blacks. I would assume that the Mac Pros use the higher performance Caviar Blacks, or similar drives.
 
MacRumors said:
[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


As noted by AppleInsider, shipping estimates for build-to-order iMac models equipped with 2 TB hard drives have slipped to a significant 5-7 week timeframe, suggesting that hard drive shortages caused by massive flooding in Thailand over the past several months may be catching up with Apple.

Image


Curiously, Mac Pro models configured with 2 TB drives do not show the same delays, with those build-to-order configurations shipping in just 3-5 business days. The 2 TB drive on the iMac is the only drive affected, as the standard 1 TB drive and configurable 256 GB solid state drive do not significantly boost build times. That 2 TB drive is available as a build-to-order option on the high-end 21.5-inch iMac and on both base models of the 27-inch iMac.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked about the potential impact of the Thailand flooding on Apple's business during the company's October earnings conference call. Cook noted that there would undoubtedly be an industry-wide shortage of hard disk drives that would primarily affect Apple in its Mac business, but that there had yet to be a full assessment of the impact or an estimated timeline for recovery. He also declined to offer any specific information on the expected impact to Apple, noting only that any such impact was figured into the company's blockbuster revenue guidance of $37 billion for the holiday quarter.

Article Link: Shipping Estimates on iMacs with 2 TB Hard Drives Slip to 5-7 Weeks Amid Shortages
Click to expand...

Anyone else think apple may be regretting it's special heat censor hard drives for the iMacs?
 
I wonder if and when Apple will raise prices on HD's... the price increases around the world have been shocking, 90% - 120% across the board. A 2TB WD external HD that I bought for $95 less than a year ago is now $200!
 
solMac said:
Wonder if this latest HDD shortage will speed up development on Thunderbolt drives. One can only hope...
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Quite the opposite - T-Bolt needs the same SATA drives from the same flood-affected factories.

There are no T-Bolt drives, only SATA drives in enclosures that use the latency-adding T-Bolt protocol to connect to the host.

Why does Apple hate on eSATA? (Although of course "eSATA" drives are the same SATA drives from the same flood-affected factories.)
 
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