Windows 7 - Looking for a new hard drive...

I find myself constantly running out of space on my hard drive and deleting things I'd prefer to keep. I saw A LOT of good deals for 250-500GB and 7200RP quality brand name hard drives for only 45-60$; I now can't find one for under 60$! Did I miss something? And why am I seeing external hard drives starting to cost less than internal?

What I want: 250GB or more (preferably more), speeds fast enough to keep up with most modern games on max settings (shouldn't be too hard to accomplish this), and reliability (in the manner that it won't die on me), and under 60$ in cost without being refurbished (I've just heard too many horror stories about this).

Pretty sure I have an IDE and SATA slot available, I would have to double check but I'm 99% sure at the moment either would work.

sorry if this is supposed to be under Hardware but it just seemed to me this isn't really a problem/support scenario

I guess you missed the bad news. Flooding in Thailand has crippled the disk manufacturers. Prices have doubled and some have tripled in the last month. Won't be until next year before they get back on line and make up the supply.

Jim

It's not only the flooding, it's China raising prices on the Rare-Earth Oxides used to manufacture the disks. They "own" the market and the source for something like 90%+ or some such. And, the other disk manufacturers (not affected by the flooding) jumped at the chance to raise prices. It boils down to supply and demand. The prices will eventually drop down but the REO situation will remain.

China got that market because the price for Rare-Earth Oxides was so low that other countries closed their mines.

Jim

Do you have a BestBuy near you? Might be worth checking them out.

heres a 320GB WD Blue for $69.99
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+...&skuId=7821985

Worth a look anyway. They do have a few in that price range, WD and Seagates.


I know I was looking for a second 1TB WD Black, but they were $180+ everywhere
BestBuy actually had it fro $119 at the time, $129 now.

You'll still pay more if you need a HD now but ...
Considering the prices everywhere ATM, they have actually been the cheapest .. which is odd because they tend to be a bit higher priced than online retailers.

You have to watch the specs when you order. For some bizarre reason I see the old WD Caviar Black 3 Gb/s 32 MB cache at higher prices than the new 6 Gb/s 64 MB cache models. Weird!! Maybe the connector is different and some people won't open the box or something. I dunno'. I've only used the 6 Gb/s with USB 3.0 docking stations. The 640 GB models are a real performer. But when I look up the model I bought previously they say they've been discontinued. I don't understand that.

Anyway, if you hunt around you may still be able to find some WD 1 tb but then you have to consider if they ship 'em brain dead due to "head slap" you might not be able to get a replacement.

Maybe if 90% of us stop buying any the price will be back near normal.

I recently got a WD Caviar Black 1TB 6Gbs that was DOA. RMA through WD and as they state they will replace with a new drive of same specs or better. They must of been out of 1TB as then send me a 2TB. I got mine from Newegg but I rather deal directly with WD for warranty.

Jim

Very true...

But something that may be worth mentioning

Oddly the WD Black 1TB at BestBuy is supposed to be the 32MB, SATA 2 drive. The WDBAAZ0010HNC
But in the box was a 1002FAEX, which was the SATA 3, 64MB version.


Looking at a few reviews at NewEgg even, there were a few that got the same thing from there as well.
Not sure if its luck of the draw, or a batch that was mislabled. And I suppose it couldnt be a certainty thats what youd get, but a nice little bonus.

That's interesting. I was advised by a hardware aficionado on another board not to buy any HD shipped UPS ground. Supposedly it's subject to a six foot drop on their conveyor system. I think I bought one HD on Egg because the price break was so good I could absorb the additional cost of shipping FedEx.

The place where I was getting my WD showed the in stock count for the models I liked at about 20,000+ on hand. I figured I had all the time in the world to get more at good prices. Just shows ta' go ya'

Hmmm, you'd think they'd phase out production of the 32 MB models unless you truly can't plug the new ones into the old machines.

Stores can be pretty sneaky about unloading the old crap. I remember checking out Best Buy online for prices and it seemed like whenever I saw a discount on any storage the stuff was really obsolete. Like drives with 16 and even 8 MB cache!! Really pandering to the suckers!!