Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1899
Price Guide, December 2005: Storage
by Haider Farhan on December 17, 2005 2:31 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Introduction
Welcome to the latest edition of our storage price guide. It's getting awfully close to the end of the annual holiday shopping extravaganza, but last minute gifts can still be had for great prices. Check out our RTPE at http://labs.anandtech.com/ for your holiday pricing needs.
Just as all other products, the last week before Christmas is when most hardware prices are jacked way up, so this weekend is your last real chance to get in on the better deals. We have noticed that there aren't many mail-in rebates (MIRs) this week, but hard drive pricing is still at a great low point.
SAS drives are beginning to drop to lower prices, slowly nearing the cost of the Ultra 320 drives. Though not at the lowest prices we have seen, DVDR's are at decent prices, making many of them outstanding options.
Alright, well that's enough of that, let's get going by taking a bite into the real meat of our guide. First off we'll take a gander at the 3.0Gbps drives....
SATA - 3.0Gbps
Many of the 3.0Gbps drive have either gone up in price or have stayed readily the same. However, we are seeing two of Seagate's drives, the new 200GB [RTPE: ST3200827AS] and 500GB [RTPE: ST3500641AS] 7200.9 Barracudas have gone down approximately $11 and $18, respectively. Luckily, the 500GB drive has a $40 mail-in rebate dropping it to $310 which is valid until early January; while the 200GB drive is going for $140 shipped.
Between the two drives mentioned above, you'll get more bang for your buck going with the 500GB Seagate at $0.62 per GB.
Although the best 3.0Gbps hard drive purchase you can make this week would be the Western Digital 250GB Caviar SE [RTPE: WD2500JS] going for $100, making that about $0.40 per GB. You can see from the graph below that this drive is currently at, or is very close to its lowest price yet.
Western Digital 3.0Gbps 250GB 7200RPM
8MB Caviar SE
If you are looking for a high density drive, one of the excellent drives we suggest you look into is the 500GB Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 [RTPE: HDS725050KLA360] on sale for $365.
SATA - 1.5Gbps
Presently, the best bang for your buck in the 1.5Gbps front is going to be either the Maxtor 250GB DiamondMax Plus 9 [RTPE: 6Y250M0] on sale for about $95 or the 250GB Maxtor MaXLine Plus II [RTPE: 7Y250M0] going for $99, making both of which close to a decent $0.40 per GB.
The drive we like because of its excellent performance is the 400GB Western Digital with 16MB cache Caviar RE2 [RTPE: WD4000YR] which is going for about $220. The drive showing the largest decrease, down approximately $21, is the 120GB Samsung SpinPoint P [RTPE: SP1213C] going for just under $90.
PATA
With the PATA drives, most of them are roughly at the same price point. A few have fluctuated up or down, but nothing too significant to draw attention to.
It seems though that the online prices are not very appealing. At a B&M shop, you can find much better deals if you don't mind going through a few rebates.
If rebates are not your thing, then picking up a drive from the 250GB category below appears to be where the best deals are. For about $100, the Western Digital 250GB Caviar SE with 8MB of cache [RTPE: WD2500JB] is a decent deal. Another fair price on a 250GB drive is the Maxtor ATA100 250GB 7200RPM 16MB MaXLine III [RTPE: 7B250R0] which is on sale for about $108. We are seeing a price reduction of about $18 with the latter suggestion.
SCSI
On to the SCSI drives, the Seagate Ultra320 146GB 10000RPM 8MB Cheetah 10K.6 (80-pin) [RTPE: ST3146807LC] has seen a price reduction of $30, bringing the total cost down to about $440, the cheapest price we have ever seen this drive go for.
Seagate Ultra320 146GB 10000RPM 8MB
Cheetah 10K.6 80-pin
We are seeing a few drives have significantly gone up in price, anywhere between an increase of $110 to $130. But who ever said that SCSI drives don't come at a premium?
Currently only marketed by two manufacturers, Maxtor and Seagate, SAS drives have decreased in price and are slowly nearing the price range of the Ultra 320 drives.
Regarding these SAS drives, your best deal is to go with either the Maxtor 73.5GB 10000RPM 16MB Atlas 10K V SAS [RTPE: 8D073S0] going for $225 or the Maxtor 147GB 10000RPM 16MB Atlas 10K V SAS [RTPE: 8D147S0] on sale for about $430.
DVDR
Concluding this month's storage guide are the DVDR drives. DVD burners are an excellent way to back-up any data or movies you may have. Doing so will not only free up your precious hard drive space, but it will allow you to easily transport large files from system to system and also enabling you to create a complete back-up of your particular OS on only a minimum number of DVD-R(W)'s.
There are a number of great drives to choose from, making only one suggestion is near impossible especially with these competitive prices.
The Hewlett-Packard 16X DVD640I [RTPE: Q6766A] is one of those few drives featuring HP's signature LightScribe technology. You can find this drive going for approximately $80.
For some cheaper (although not performance-wise) alternatives, the NEC 16X ND-3540A [RTPE: ND-3540A] is on sale for about $48 and the Pioneer 16X DVR-110D [RTPE: DVR-110] is on sale for $44 shipped. The BenQ DW1640 [RTPE: DW1640] is still the drive to have this month and at the moment, is going for about $58.
By the way, we are expecting NEC to debut its new DVDR with LightScribe early next year at CES, which will be covered by our very own Kristopher Kubicki.
This concludes this week's price guide, check back next week for another edition of our price guides as we will be covering the latest trend in CPU pricing. Thanks for reading!