HDD Shortage Pushes CCleaner Software Downloads

Piriform Inc. reports an increase in CCleaner PC optimization software downloads to nearly one million per day and a dramatic uptick in CCleaner Network Professional software sales since early reports of computer hard disk shortages.

Recent flooding in Thailand has reduced computer hard disk supply as much as 20%, according to DigiTimes, resulting in reported three fold increases in storage costs.

"Now is not the time to buy a mechanical hard drive, not unless you absolutely have to," according to Paul Lilly at MaximumPC.com.

According to DigiTimes, most hard drive manufacturers expect to ship significantly less hard drives in Q4 compared to Q3.

Here’s how it shakes out:

• Western Digital 3Q11: 58 million HDDs
• Western Digital 4Q11: 22-26 million HDDs
• Hitachi 3Q11: 31-32 million HDDs
• Hitachi 4Q11: 20 million HDDs
• Toshiba 3Q11: 22 million HDDs
• Toshiba 4Q11: 12 million HDDs

"Since the downturn in the economy, several CIO’s have told us how they are using our CCleaner and Defraggler products to extend the life of their PC’s 1-3 more years, now the hard disk shortage and resulting cost increases makes PC optimization an even higher priority," said Guy Saner, Piriform’s CEO.

"CCleaner Network Professional was released just prior to the flooding in Thailand and we are hearing from a number of tech CIO’s interested in using it to extend their hard drive efficiency to endure the shortage. CCleaner Network Professional is the industry standard for PC technicians and system administrators to purge unnecessary files and malware and now its  value has increased exponentially as IT relies on it to keep computers running clean, safe and fast," Saner added. "Our thoughts and support go out to the people of Thailand during this difficult time."