I attempted to find a direct link to Seagates web site with this information, it came to me in an email from Seagate. We prefer Seagate drives but also use Western Digital (see my previous posts) as they are owned by Seagate.

Below is the text of the email to us partners.

“As has been widely reported, the severe flooding in Thailand is a tragic situation for families and businesses across the region. To aid in the relief and recovery efforts, Seagate is donating US$1 million across a few key organizations in Thailand.

With regard to Seagate business operations in Thailand, our component and drive assembly factories are operational and accessible. Our production is not constrained by either internal component supply or by our ability to assemble finished products. Rather, we are constrained by the availability of specific externally sourced components. Seagate now expects to ship 41 million to 45 million hard drives in the current quarter, a change from the prior projection of 40 million to 50 million units.

Throughout the entire industry, demand will significantly outstrip supply at least for the December quarter and the supply disruption will continue for multiple quarters. Unconstrained demand was expected to be approximately 180 million units for the December 2011 quarter. It is now expected that industry shipments will be limited to approximately 110 to 120 million units.

As such, our business priorities are focused on supporting our external component suppliers’ efforts to rebuild the supply chain as quickly as possible, and to work with customers to strategically align their near- and long-term requirements to our production capability. We are aligning our production schedules and product builds to best support both our suppliers and our customers. Our product roadmap has not changed.

Please understand that this is an evolving situation that we are diligently monitoring on a daily basis. Foremost in our minds is the tragic nature of this disaster, and our thoughts are with those personally affected.”

Expect price increases on new computers throught the holidays.

Until we meet again, have a virus free week.