Skyrocketing price of mechanical hard drives

[ICIT2LOL]

There was no technical reason for me to buy in a set as I did, it was just the way things worked out. At the time, I felt that it would be better to have 4 500GB drives, rather than 1 2TB drive, like not putting all the eggs in one basket.

Ah got you now thought they were "matched" as the old trannies used to be for optimum performance and stability.

Sounds a bit like my setup - 1TB and two 500GB 's one cloned from the larger one (insurance) only I only have only one connected in at any one time..

Just glad I bought up sort of big before the price hike

 

[EvilOzzmess]

My Notebook's 2.5" picked a REALLY crappy time to start dying on me... had to buy the only one Amazon is selling at a steep $134.99 (they of COURSE did not have any of the 320GB ones left... only 500GB, 250GB, and 160GB). I waited two days to confirm it was the HDD... I have at least 8 different indicators so had to do it. PXE "Operating System Not Found" Media Test Failure (IDE0 HDD not recognized in BIOS), Event 51 Disk and Event 57 NTFS errors (when it finally DID let me in), along with intermittent spinup failures, mini-freezes (ghosted shortcuts when moved), snap-ticking noises with the system in idle and etc. (oddly the drive keeps passing error checks left and right, must be a fluke there) SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! ROYALLY SUCK!

By the way, this HDD used to cost only $67 - $80 back in May 2011!

And the kicker is... it could still be my MOBO's controller going out (though it's not likely given the symptoms with the new snap-ticking). No way to tell unless a new one is plugged in and booted. And I of course only have two 3.5" external HDD's that can't be used to test that because they just HAD to make Notebook HDD's 2.5". Like 1" less makes all the difference...

I guess it's a small blessing that Amazon offers a 30-day "no questions asked" return policy on these things, unlike everywhere else. So at least my @$$ is covered there. No tax and free S&H too. Bonus.

But still:

 

[0pTicaL]

My Notebook's 2.5" picked a REALLY crappy time to start dying on me... had to buy the only one Amazon is selling at a steep $134.99 (they of COURSE did not have any of the 320GB ones left... only 500GB, 250GB, and 160GB). I waited two days to confirm it was the HDD... I have at least 8 different indicators so had to do it. PXE "Operating System Not Found" Media Test Failure (IDE0 HDD not recognized in BIOS), Event 51 Disk and Event 57 NTFS errors (when it finally DID let me in), along with intermittent spinup failures, mini-freezes (ghosted shortcuts when moved), snap-ticking noises with the system in idle and etc. (oddly the drive keeps passing error checks left and right, must be a fluke there) SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! ROYALLY SUCK!

By the way, this HDD used to cost only $67 - $80 back in May 2011!

And the kicker is... it could still be my MOBO's controller going out (though it's not likely given the symptoms with the new snap-ticking). No way to tell unless a new one is plugged in and booted. And I of course only have two 3.5" external HDD's that can't be used to test that because they just HAD to make Notebook HDD's 2.5". Like 1" less makes all the difference...

I guess it's a small blessing that Amazon offers a 30-day "no questions asked" return policy on these things, unlike everywhere else. So at least my @$$ is covered there. No tax and free S&H too. Bonus.

But still:

Buy a external drive, take it out of the enclosure and put it in your laptop. Money saved.

Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB - $59.99

 

[draynes]

My Notebook's 2.5" picked a REALLY crappy time to start dying on me... had to buy the only one Amazon is selling at a steep $134.99 (they of COURSE did not have any of the 320GB ones left... only 500GB, 250GB, and 160GB). I waited two days to confirm it was the HDD... I have at least 8 different indicators so had to do it. PXE "Operating System Not Found" Media Test Failure (IDE0 HDD not recognized in BIOS), Event 51 Disk and Event 57 NTFS errors (when it finally DID let me in), along with intermittent spinup failures, mini-freezes (ghosted shortcuts when moved), snap-ticking noises with the system in idle and etc. (oddly the drive keeps passing error checks left and right, must be a fluke there) SUCK! SUCK! SUCK! ROYALLY SUCK!

By the way, this HDD used to cost only $67 - $80 back in May 2011!

And the kicker is... it could still be my MOBO's controller going out (though it's not likely given the symptoms with the new snap-ticking). No way to tell unless a new one is plugged in and booted. And I of course only have two 3.5" external HDD's that can't be used to test that because they just HAD to make Notebook HDD's 2.5". Like 1" less makes all the difference...

I guess it's a small blessing that Amazon offers a 30-day "no questions asked" return policy on these things, unlike everywhere else. So at least my @$$ is covered there. No tax and free S&H too. Bonus.

But still:

Buy a external drive, take it out of the enclosure and put it in your laptop. Money saved.

Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB - $59.99

LOL

I have one of those and never thought of what it cost versus a bare drive. And to top it off, I got it cheaper than usual since I bought a re-certified unit that had been returned to WD for some reason. Mine works perfectly every time.

 

[FranzB]

The recent price hike is mostly due to the flooding in Thailand where even industrial parks have been inundated and production stopped. Apparently 15% of all hard drives are manufactured there.

 

[carwiz]

The recent price hike is mostly due to the flooding in Thailand where even industrial parks have been inundated and production stopped. Apparently 15% of all hard drives are manufactured there.

Apparently, you have old data. That's already been discussed here and the number is closer to 70+%. A 15% loss in manufacturing wouldn't have such a large impact on the market as we're seeing now.

 

[FranzB]

Those are recent data from the Bangkok Post.

 

[Phone Man]

Some Good News

Here is some good news from WD as they get one plant back in production.

WD dries out flood-trashed fab, pumps out first disks ? Channel Register

Jim

 

[adrek]

My 1.5 TB storage drive just died last week, do you guys know when is it expected for the prices to go down a bit?

 

[Phone Man]

Probably not for at least 6 Months. Is you drive under warranty?

Jim

 

[badger906]

March-april time before you see any difference, but I think it will be minimal, maybe a year before prices resemble anything like they did a few months ago

 

[linnemeyerhere]

I needed a new external usb 3.0 drive for the business laptop and I figured I was out of luck with these crazy prices going round. Then Seagate sent Black Friday savings link and I scored a 1 tb GoFlex with a 3.0 express card and cable for $99.99 usd which represents 47% discount. I jumped on it without a 2nd thought. Check out the excellent current price.
Hard Drive Deals
If you shop very hard and get to know the spec's and pricing you can still find deals but they are getting tougher to find and I'm just happy this landed in my lap !

 

[adrek]

Probably not for at least 6 Months. Is you drive under warranty?

Jim

I got it in late 2007 or early 2008 and I think it has a 5 years warranty. I'll contact Seagate to see what to do.

 

[magnetite]

One of my Seagate drives is at 1/2 heath according to the SMART status, so let's hope it keeps until they can get more drives in. I got it back in 2008, so it should last until this is resolved if it's lasted this long. It was the only drive not affected by the bricking Seagate had a few years back. All my other drives have been replaced with WDC drives.

 

[C32C3]

The price of hdd's have risen in the Netherlands as well. I am fortunate because I have enough space on both my internal and external hdd's. If worse comes to worse I can make use of two 500GB IDE hdd's that are in one of my backup pc's.

I have read of the reasons for the price increases and maybe some or all of it is true. My thinking is that a lot of people are using whatever excuses available to increase prices and make greater profits.

My strategy is to not buy anything that isn't necessary until this global economic greed ebbs a bit.

 

[Maguscreed]

As you can see by my specs now I just finished my new build I got a 128 gig ssd that came with batman arkham city for 100 dollars.
They wanted 89 for a slow spinning 250gig mechanical in the same store.

 

[Britton30]

As you can see by my specs now I just finished my new build I got a 128 gig ssd that came with batman arkham city for 100 dollars.
They wanted 89 for a slow spinning 250gig mechanical in the same store.

I saw that sale today. that's what I want for Christmas. (hint, hint)
Nope, it was this I saw, $200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147137

 

[Maguscreed]

exact same drive actually
it's a beast too
boot time is basically the amount of time it takes the stupid windows logo animation to run.
It's nice the second you see desktop everything is loaded and ready to go.
and I didn't tweak or mess with anything really yet wanted to enjoy some gaming on it before I got back to 'finishing' the settings and all that.

 

[Dave76]

I turned off the windows logo animation because it wasn't even finishing before the system was booted.

 

[Maguscreed]

I turned off the windows logo animation because it wasn't even finishing before the system was booted.

Mind linking me to a how to on that?
I'm guessing it's not that difficult it's just something that's never come up for me before.