For the past few months Thailand has been experiencing heavy rains. The continuous amount of rain the region received has lead to massive flooding and damage to many of the electronics manufacturing facilities in the country. Companies like Western Digital, Seagate and others have all been affected by flooding of their manufacturing facilities.

Due to these unforeseen events we are experiencing one of the worst hard drive shortages ever. What this means for consumers is hard drives are more expensive and harder to keep stock.

CPU Solutions strives to provide the highest quality service to our customers and as such we are sourcing replacement Solid State (SSD) hard drives for systems so customers have several options during this shortage.

Solid State technology offers customers state of the art performance at a reasonable price point while avoiding the price hike on standard hard drives that we are currently experiencing.

If you are new to Solid State (SDD) hard drives we have including links to information to get you up to the speed on the new technology to help you understand why it is a great option for your new PC.

We are also including a list of Frequently Asked Questions we receive about Solid State drives to help clarify any additional questions customers may have. Please feel free to contact us with any additional questions you may have.

Q. Aren't Solid State hard drives less reliable than standard hard drives?

A. No. In fact Solid State hard drives have become just as reliable as standard hard drives due to improvements in the manufacturing process over the past 2 years.

Q. Don't Solid State hard drive cost more money than regular drives?

A. Normally yes, but because of the hard drive shortage prices on standard hard drives have nearly tripled and are still rising while prices on their Solid State counterparts have remained steady and will likely go down in price a few percent . Because of this price increase we are recommending Solid State drives to customers in order to offer them the most value in a system.

Q. Solid State drives are smaller than standard drives. Won't I run out of space?

A. We have found that customers purchasing a Solid State hard drive with Windows 7 need a minimum of 80gb on their primary drive. Outside of this many customers actually use very little space on their systems unless they download a lot of movies. 1,000 songs (mp3) take up roughly 5-10gbs of hard drive space, 500 pictures use roughly 1gb of hard drive space, and most people "My Documents" folder can be stored for about 2.5gbs. As you can see a Solid State hard drive offers plenty of storage for the average user.

Q. I need 1TB of storage, but I don't want to spend a lot of money.

A. Due to the hard drive shortage our recommendation to customers who are on a budget is to postpone purchasing a 1TB hard drive for the next 5 - 6 months. Most average users will not exceed 300gb of storage in that time, at which point you can purchase a 1TB hard drive when supply can keep up with the demand.

Q. How long is the hard shortage expected to last?

A. Analysts are predicting that hard drive production should be back on track by Q2 of 2012.

Q. I heard Seagate was not affected by this, can't you just sell me a Seagate drive.

A. While Seagate's manufacturing facilities fared better than others during the flooding a company called Nidec which produces hard drive motors was affected by the floods. Nidec provides Seagate with motors for their hard drives. Seagate has been affected indirectly by the flooding.

Q. Why can I only purchase one hard drive?

A. CPU Solutions is a custom computer builder first and a hardware reseller second. We are limiting the amount of hard drives customers can purchase on a single order to ensure that all customers are able to get a hard drive of their choice for their new PC.