About 40 percent of the world's hard disk drives are made in Thailand, , who was forced to close all its factories in Thailand. According to Seagate (whose factories were spared from the flooding), a shortage of key parts for HDDs will have a negative effect on production.

HDD prices have risen by about 20 percent since the floods began, the reports. Those who were thinking about purchasing a new HDD might want to wait until supply problems are solved. Unfortunately, industry analysts estimate this may not happen until the fourth quarter of 2012.

Reacting to what he called a "bottleneck" in the whole PC production chain, Acer Chairman J.T.Wang said Friday that the company will raise laptop prices in mid-November.

The only good news I can find on this unfortunate state of affairs is from , which reports that the 7-millimeter high HDD used in the Ultrabook isn't produced in Thailand. The S3's $899 price should hold steady, then.

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