Seagate boss Steve Luczo reckons suppliers should brace themselves for 12 months of disk drive pain.

Quoted in Bloomberg, Luczo says that the overall disk drive supply chain has been heavily impacted by the Thai floods with many smaller component suppliers down in the supply chain depths flooded out. He mentions 130 suppliers in Thailand that contribute parts to Seagate hard drives.

Luczo dashes hopes of drive supplies returning to normal next summer: “This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least," he said. "And by then, demand will have gone up.”

Drive prices are already rising and major drive OEMs are paying up front to get allocations ahead of others. All this may improve some disk drive manufacturer's profits. It's not all bad news; it just depends how you spin it. ®