GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. -- If you've got a computer, laptop or external hard drive on your Christmas list, you can expect to pay more for it this year.
Flooding in Thailand has put many of the hard drive parts suppliers under water and that is creating a shortage globally.
"We've had drives that used to be $60, up to as much as $180, they're tripling in prices. Some drives have even gone up to quadruple the price," said Jeff Solheim with Micro Center.
The short-supply comes at a time when hard drive production was already low, thanks to the sluggish economy. Companies like HP, Acer and Dell are considering raising prices for their products to cover the cost of the inflated components.
High prices could linger long into the next year as they don't expect hard drive production to be back to normal until summer or even third quarter of 2012.
"Companies like Western Digital, Hitachi, Seagate are using divers to get into their factories to pull equipment out and set up new facilities but that all takes time," says Solheim.
Solheim says he believes there is enough stock to get through the holiday season, but can't promise much beyond that. He says they, and online retailers, have had to limit the number of hard drives customers can buy. They've also had to take some of the products off the shelves because the price was so high they were being stolen.