Skyrocketing price of mechanical hard drives

[whs]

Just saw this WD bare bone for $50. It is not the world, but a start into the right direction. And all the better deals seem to be recertified these days.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Like all things "Horses for Courses" and while you might (and probably are) careful in your volume when using phones that don't contain the sound most people usually don't bother -- and it's usually the people with the lowest quality music (here I mean compression quality rather than what they are actually playing) that are the worst offenders in broadcasting their music to the public at large.

There may well be "Passive" phones that could be cheaper and sound good -- but for planes, trains, buses etc there's nothing like a set of expensive Bose noise cancelling phones to shield you from all that extraneous rubbish.

The 300 EUR or so I paid for the Quiet comfort 3 noise cancelling phones have been IMO one of the best investments I've made -- especially as I travel a lot particularly between Belgium, France, UK, Iceland and USA.

It's almost unbelievable the amount of pointless Mobile phone calls "wage slaves" etc seem to make when at airports or in trains so it's great to be able to shut them out totally. Most people on the phone also seem to forget that the rest of the carriage etc isn't deaf either !!!!. There must be something in the nature of making a phone call that causes people to SCREAM at the top of their voices !!!

These things are often subjective -- but BETTER quality equipment will fnd ANY imperfections in the original source -- it's quite possible that if you have a fairly rubbishy low compression mp3 signal (128 kbs and lower - even 192 kbs leaves something to be desired ) this stuff will probably sound BETTER on cheap equipment and probably sound like Road drills on High end "Studio monitor speakers and reference amps".

If you MUST use compression don't even consider less than 256 kbs -- better is 320 kbs. However with large HDD's why not use uncompressed sound (WAV) or LOssless compressed such as FLAC.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[pparks1]

There may well be "Passive" phones that could be cheaper and sound good -- but for planes, trains, buses etc there's nothing like a set of expensive Bose noise cancelling phones to shield you from all that extraneous rubbish.

It all comes down to your own personal needs. I live in the US and in an area where buses are not commonplace at all, trains..(haven't been on one in 30 years), subways (don't exist here), and planes (only rarely). When I am on a plane, I tend to use in ear noise suppression style plugs as I want to just keep them in my pocket and travel as small as possible.

The 300 EUR or so I paid for the Quiet comfort 3 noise cancelling phones have been IMO one of the best investments I've made -- especially as I travel a lot particularly between Belgium, France, UK, Iceland and USA.

Sounds like you get your monies worth out of them, and that is great. The QC15's are a very solid pair of headphones and I don't argue that....but I'd never suggest that BOSE makes great products all around.

If you MUST use compression don't even consider less than 256 kbs -- better is 320 kbs. However with large HDD's why not use uncompressed sound (WAV) or LOssless compressed such as FLAC.

Cheers
jimbo

I usually rip my own CD's with Exact Audio Copy and I set it at VBR 2. Most of my stuff comes out between ~190-235kbit/s. I've listened extensively at my own stuff ripped with various tools/compression levels, etc. My personal opinion is that my settings above get me 95% of the quality of FLAC without the large file sizes. The reason that I stick with compressed files is the majority of my music playback devices (phone, tablet, Sony MP3 player), either have very limited storage or simply don't handle WAV or FLAC files. Overall, many times my music is simply background noise and it doesn't need to be absolutely pristine...thus I simply cannot justify the space usage for Lossless formats.

 

[Sub Styler]

I cant justify spending 300EUR on ear/head phones, I have had so many pairs of headphones (of reasonable quality in the 40-80Eur range) and they never last long before I get a break in the cable and loose signal to one or both ears. If I thought the cable was infallible on an expensive pair then I would consider it. I have even had cordless headphones but then I end up falling asleep with them on or running up and down stairs and they get broken one way or another.

 

[pparks1]

^ Sounds like a bunch of bad luck . I cannot remember the last pair of headphones that I had which broke. But yeah, if you rip through this many pairs of headphones, I'd say it's better to just stay with commodity cheap models.

 

[badger906]

ive just ordered another SSD.. thought id go fully SSD and say screw you floods!!

Mac osx is lightning fast as it is... soo hoping it will read my mind and doo stuff before i have chance to click it with an SSD up its arse

 

[Maguscreed]

I can not understate the amount of difference a good ssd will make on even a older system.

They are probably one of the single most noticeable updates you can make to a system.
I boot so quickly now I had to disable the gui boot because it was slowing it down.

 

[badger906]

Yeah I was amased when I bought one for my gaming rig.. Just wish I could afford to replace the 6 drives in my server lol

 

[Maguscreed]

Yeah I was amased when I bought one for my gaming rig.. Just wish I could afford to replace the 6 drives in my server lol

it looks like the flavor of hdd this month is something you already own.
Otherwise it's a good time to justify that first ssd purchase.

Given the price of mechanical drives right now 64 and 128 gig solid states seem a little less unreasonable, and that should be plenty for a solid boot drive and base apps.
Also the ssd's don't get slower like hdd's do when they start to get full.

 

[badger906]

unfortunately for me i think the HDD in my sky box is about to take a dump and die as when i do live pause and un pause it the play back is all choppy and laggy..

Could i/should i be the first person to pimp out a sky box (a bit like satellite tevo for across the pond people) with an SSD? its a serious contemplation if it does die lol, then it wont wake me up in the middle of the night when its doing its daily maintenance and what not to the drive

 

[Coke Robot]

Now we play the waiting game.....

Man oh man, I was expecting to get my three terabyte hard drives this month, noooo! 300+ for a drive that was floating near 130 six months ago, , I think I'll buy a solid drive. But then, hopefully the technology doesn't shift soon.

 

[rubyrubyroo]

(patting self on back for once...) I stocked up on 1+ TB HDD's past year and a half I see how reading and planning can be a helpful thing. (Never learned that in high school ironically.) I paid mostly wholesale/overstock prices but retail would have been fine I guess (so don't get all mad at what some of us may have planned on prospering from - and been "investing" in by educated hopeful guessing! - I actually hope it's not "over" TOO QUICK for MY sake anyway!) (although I know that sound mean)

 

[ICIT2LOL]

(patting self on back for once...) I stocked up on 1+ TB HDD's past year and a half I see how reading and planning can be a helpful thing. (Never learned that in high school ironically.) I paid mostly wholesale/overstock prices but retail would have been fine I guess (so don't get all mad at what some of us may have planned on prospering from - and been "investing" in by educated hopeful guessing! - I actually hope it's not "over" TOO QUICK for MY sake anyway!) (although I know that sound mean)

Humm me too I bought up out of sheer luck more than anything after the original Samsung was so "disappointing" and I found the Seagates the go got 2x 1TB and 500GB each for a next build and saved at least $150 all up. Same with my 3.0 USB externals too x4 - just in case must have been in the ether or me being a compulsive hoarder LOL!!

 

[badger906]

Really wish I'd have stocked up now! If prices ever fall near what they used to I might just buy a load and store them. Don't mind paying £40 per TB.. £120 no way!

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

 

[Borg 386]

Intel forecast hit hard by hard-drive woes

Apparently it's hitting a few other areas too.

With the warning, Intel becomes just the latest technology company to take a hit. Texas Instruments also cut its outlook and cited the hard-drive shortages. Even DuPont noted that demand for its chemicals used in electronics manufacturing fell because of the hard-drive shortage. Flooding in Thailand set hard-drive makers and the associated supply ecosystem on its heels.


The working theory among analysts a few weeks ago assumed that the fourth quarter would be OK, but the first quarter would be rocky. Given the warnings of late, it’s clear that the fourth quarter is hampered by the hard-drive shortage too.

 

[Britton30]

I don't think I'd worry if my revenue dropped from 14.7B to 13.7B dollars, but economists are doom-sayers as usual.:huh:

 

[ShadowMario3]

Wow, the prices are really going up. Glad I got my Western Digital My Book 2 TB hard drive (only USB 2.0, but I don't care much for 3.0 yet) for $85 back in January from Staples. Shocked at seeing how at Staples the Elements version is $209 and the My Book (3.0) version is $190 (which is weird, since Elements is usually cheaper)...

 

[mjf]

My Book Essentials 2TB (USB2/3) is on sale locally for me at $159. It may be best to buy now than wait.

 

[jimbo45]

My Book Essentials 2TB (USB2/3) is on sale locally for me at $159. It may be best to buy now than wait.

Wait till after Xmas -- I think a lot of places are cashing in on the "perceived" shortage of HDD's.

Stores often increase prices over the XMAS period just so they can announce a "Massive Sale" just after Xmas where the "Massive" price drop still leaves the price higher than the original one.

Try reading a bit of George Orwell's 1984 with the "Newspeak" Chocolate Ration announcements -- just search Chocolate Ration in the two text pieces in the link.

(Reminds me of Modern day Politicians too !!). Enjoy -

Note the work 1984 is now public domain so no copyright infringements here BTW.

George Orwell - 1984 - Part 1, Chapter 4

George Orwell's 1984 Quote Analysis

Cheers
jimbo

 

[lehnerus2000]

George Orwell's 1984, the politician's how-to guide.

Wasn't that the book that Amazon obliterated from people's e-books?