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Rare Earth Restrictions To Raise Hard Drive Cost

Posted by timothy on from the economics-have-consequences dept.

MojoKid writes "Multiple manufacturers in the IT industry have been keeping a wary eye on China's decision to cut back on rare earth exports and the impact it may have on component prices. There have been reports that suggest we'll see that decision hit the hard drive industry this year, with HDD prices trending upwards an estimated 5-10 percent depending on capacity. Although rare earth magnets are only a small part of a hard drive's total cost, China cut exports last year by 40 percent, which drove pricing for these particular components up an estimated 20-30x. China currently controls 97 percent of the rare earth elements market for popular metals like neodymium, cerium, yttrium and ytterbium."

2 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. A solution. by Oxford_Comma_Lover · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's okay. With the economy where it is, we can replace the magnets with interns.

    --
    -- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
  2. Re:The obvious first question... by sortius_nod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    actually, you're 100% wrong.

    The restrictions are to try to get high tech industry to develop in China. There are no restrictions of use of rare earth metals in China, just the export of the raw materials. It's a good way to ensure high tech manufacturing does develop. Essentially China can hold the world to ransom due their highly developed and underpaid RE mining industry. It's much cheaper to refine RE minerals in China due to lack of industrial relations and environmental laws.

    Hell, even Australian RE companies are hesitant to set up refining here due to the massive amounts of radioactive waste from refining RE minerals.

    China are even buying up large stakes in Australian RE mining companies just to gain even more of an edge. Chinalco attempted to take over Australia's largest RE miner and was blocked by the ACCC in no small part due to China's stance on RE exports.

    Maybe look a bit deeper rather than just looking at company profits. China are all about bringing jobs onshore and having the upper hand globally.

    Aside from this, very happy I bought 4x 2GB HDDs recently for my new array, in before the price rise!