Here in the UK I can the memory and M2 SSD for a significant discount on what FW are charging.
Most likely the expected consumer demand warranted low volume orders for these parts, which drove up FW’s pricing, and led to consumers buying their parts elsewhere. There may have been other factors, such as contractual agreements with manufacturers re: pricing, but ultimately the high availability of these items would most likely dilute demand and reduce the incentive to even try to be cost competitive.
When ordering a standard build you don’t get an opportunity to decide how much memory or what size disk you want. so when going out searching people are finding for the same price they can get twice the memory or a larger disk, probably has as much to with it as anything.
For the DIY vs Pre-Built, I’m sure you’re right.
I seemed to have jumped ahead quite a bit, my apologies. Didn’t see the entirety of the initial question, which was what I was mostly replying to, to begin with.
I suspect this to be true in many countries. Maybe not in places like the Philippines, but certainly here in the States as well.
The relatively higher price of the memory and storage is almost certainly the driving force behind customers buying these parts elsewhere. I took for granted that most people already knew that, which if I had read the rest of the initial question, I would have realized was not the case. My apologies.
But once you get past that, the next question you might ask is, “Why did FW price their storage and memory so much higher than retail?” Certainly they’re a for profit business and these are essential parts. Don’t they want to sell them? Shouldn’t their pricing be lower so they can be more competitive?
“Why these prices and what factored into them?” Those questions are what I feel to be at the heart of the whole pricing conundrum (and the resulting purchase decisions), and what I feel are more compelling questions.
Perhaps there’s more to the pricing than meets the eye. Afterall, since FW places the memory and storage in their packaging, might they also be testing it in-house as well? I would expect that to curb DOA returns and other after sales support, so it would be a wise choice on their part. It would also help to justify a higher price; however, I am not aware of this practice and I would think an added value like testing would be something they would be sure to highlight.
At the end of the day, FW is still a small business. They probably don’t want to sell a ton of parts with little to no margin (that they also have to support), especially when their main product has been designed to work with third party components.
I guess my money is on all of the above 
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Preorder started in 2023 March. They had to put together the pricing and reserve future deliveries of the SSD and RAM probably weeks or months earlier. The WD Black 770 1TB was 140CAD in 2023 Jan, 120CAD in Feb. So the 135CAD price didn’t sound that unreasonable, especially with 7% inflation possibly pushing the price of the part higher.
But that’s not what happened, and by the time people started ordering Batch 7, the WD Black bottomed out at 62CAD. So of course people chose to go with Amazon instead of paying double so they get the same part from Framework.
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Agree with you here.
Maybe, maybe not.
With the pricing as high as it is, would it be that surprising to learn they were purchasing the SSDs nearly on demand? Unless I’m mistaken, in the “Batch 3 Guild”, the “We’re preparing your shipment!” email that was shared talked specifically about having the inventory on hand to start fulfilling some Batch 3 orders. Maybe they were only talking about mainboards and computers, but perhaps it also speaks to their other inventory concerns? Meaning other parts, like memory and storage, coming in and out of stock.
Either way, I doubt that FW was committed to buying any memory or storage until after the first few batches sold out. Even then, is reserving components something FW has the ability to do, given that they are a (relatively) recent entry in the market and may not have the volume or history to warrant such consideration? And would FW really want that risk exposure, when it’s almost completely unjustified given the nature of their product?
For the RAM, since they collaborated with the manufacturer, you are almost certainly correct. They would have needed to commit to a substantial number of kits in advance. Though, when or how far in advance is something only FW and ADATA knows for certain.
This is really interesting. Maybe they were hedging against inflation, just to be on the safe side? That tracks!
This narrative has some merit to it, but…
This doesn’t account for two things: the price of the 4TB being nearly $600 (which might be close to the MSRP but also significantly more than it was going for at the time), and that even in the Batch 1 poll, 81% opted to bring their own SSD and 58% opted to bring their own RAM.
I don’t think FW would be surprised by these poll results, given this is their third or fourth rodeo (depending on how you look at it). I assume our numbers track pretty closely with those from previous releases.
If you work backwards from there, low demand equals low order volume, low order volume equals lower discounts, and lower discounts equals higher sales prices.
I should mention that (in case it wasn’t obvious) I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. I just enjoy the mental exercise of figuring out how things might be taking shape behind the scenes. Someone with some actual experience in the industry would undoubtedly be more informed. If that’s you and I’ve spoken out of turn, my humblest apologies.
Good luck to all still waiting! Hopefully you won’t have much longer to wait
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If my 2 cents can add anything to this discussion: I am buying my Framework batch 7 as a business, so I am happy to pay a little premium to get everything in one package and one invoice.
Sadly, the WD SN850X does not support hardware encryption so I have asked FW support to remove it from my order, and I will be buying a Samsung 990 Pro on the side, for only 5€ less… (again, cannot snatch a deal somewhere if I am not sure I’ll get a proper invoice)
I only don’t get why so many people are not buying the included RAM when compatibility seems to be so up in the air at this point…
At the end of the day, I praise the flexibility this system offers for everyone 
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Batch 3 notebooks started arriving, Batch 4 emails being sent out. I have to admit, it feels great to be wrong.
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Batch 3 starting to arrive in country.
Batch 4 has emails saying a ‘few weeks’
Batches 5 & 6 to go - perhaps 2 or 3 weeks each. They’re catching up though.
So (conjecture):
Batch 7 emails mid Dec and arrivals around the holiday period 
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Batch 5 just received their emails… Batch 4 already receiving their FWS…
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Maybe a week or 3 till we will get an email? that would be niiiiice
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I`m counting on that, I will have to travel and it is always good to have a good new FW companion.
To dampen expectation, depending on what your OS choice is i would like that thoroughly test a device at least for a week before trusting it on any kind of trip lasting longer than a day.
I am a bit pessimistic here because i am ardently following all the linux threads and there seems a whole list of stuff that has to be checked and fine tuned as sleep, battery handling, driver issues and so on. I am sure all that will be ironed out eventually, but especially the firmware stuff seems to leave some things to be desired.
There is also the hardware side, threads here are a bad measurement as the unknown element might be huge and maybe the people that do complain are the only ones among thousands that actually have problems. I also considering swapping the cooling paste but then i know nothing how to procure this fabled PTM7950 stuff, and even if then i wonder if it really worth it.
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I plan on doing the PTM7950 but I will wait a couple months before doing it. The original thermal paste will be at its best at first and I’ll get time to judge if it’s needed or not.
The PTM7950 doesn’t seem hard to get, the results from the Aliexpress 0.2mm thick one are very close from the original 0.25mm.
Me too, need to work abroad so having a maxed out fw with me would be nice. Im going for the windows os, hopefully it will work nicely
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Based on the conversation above about prices, I looked at what components are going for at my local Microcenter, and indeed I can save at least $65 by bringing my own storage and RAM. I’ll get over the compatibility worries (I’m used to the desktop world where anything with a SATA port is fair game!)
So I just changed my order with Framework, thankfully I’m still in the illustrious Batch 7. I think I’ll wait until Black Friday and see what kinds of sales pop up on SSDs and RAM!
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batch 6 got emails does any one here have them?
Based on previous batches the initial email notifications are a week apart. Expected date for batch 7 is 15/11
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I have joined the waiting group for batch 7! Also I didnt realize they were already on batch 6!
The email is coming! Be strong my friends…
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