Technology washed away...

19.10.2011
I back up my data using a hard-disk-drive array with built-in redundancy. HDDs eventually fail, so redundancy is a must if you want to save your data. One of the HDDs in the array failed, so I stopped by a local retailer to pick up a one-terabyte HDD (imagine saying that even five years ago).

He told me that his suppliers say the price of HDDs will go up 20-30% on delivery of new stock. The factories just north of Bangkok that manufacture Western Digital and Seagate drives have flooded.

This is first and foremost a story of human tragedy rather than technology: skilled workers producing high-tech products have seen their homes as well as workplaces flooded, and their livelihoods put on hold. A lot of finger-pointing in Thailand nowadays as flood-barriers are breached, industrial estates flood and the Chao Phya river swells.

But ironically, according to the Bangkok Post, technology could have been used to help mitigate the effects of this season's unprecedented rainfall.