Production of hard disks by Bangkok-based Western Digital (WD) have ground to a halt following severe flooding across parts of Thailand.

With monsoon season in full flow, Seagate, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST) and Toshiba have also been affected due to problems with transportation around the country.

With 60 per cent of WD’s 54 million hard drives shipped in the quarter ending July 1, 2011, the disruption to services in Thailand has sparked concerns of a HDD shortage in the final quarter of this year.

Western Digitial will be assessing the situation over the coming days and an investment call on October 19 should shed more light on the situation.

“Most downstream players are aggressively working on piling up their HDD inventory to avoid potential shortages in the fourth quarter of 2011,” reports the DigiTimes.

The hard drive manufacturers will be keen to get things up and running as soon as possible following record growth in the sector during the second quarter of 2011.

Market research company Gartner reports a 11.6 percent increase in hard drive sales compared to the same time last year with revenue totalling US$5.1 billion.