Current hot price point for Hard drives?

[Tonybologna23]

Last time I was in the market, the 250gb drive was the "hot drive" of the time, costing only about $130 or so. Now it is about a year later and I need some larger drives (300+), what is the best to buy? 2x 300gb? 1x 400gb? Do all of these drives share the same reliability?

basically I need atleast 400gb of space. With no more than 2 drives, with a good $/gb ratio.

[DougLite]

250GB drives are around $110, meaning that you get 500GB for ~$220, which is about what 400GB drives cost. Unless you have a physical space limitation, 250GB drives are the most cost effective right now.

[NulloModo]

250GB drives are around $110, meaning that you get 500GB for ~$220, which is about what 400GB drives cost. Unless you have a physical space limitation, 250GB drives are the most cost effective right now.

You can get 250gig drives for as low as $87... You can pick up 300gig drives for just over $100. But I think the cost per gig still leans a little towards the 250s... but with just pennies more per gig for a 300 gig drive, I'd say pick two of those up and give yourself an extra 100gigs of space.

[Ockie]

320 is the next sweet spot.. about 120 for one (SATA)
250's are in the upper 80s at the moment (IDE, low 90s for SATA)

[The King of Pants]

damn, got links for any of those?

[NulloModo]

damn, got links for any of those?

www.pricewatch.com

[Ripped85]

I'm also in the market for an SATA...my mobo is about a year old, so it doesn't have that NCQ feature. I also need a really quiet HD, i hate loud ones. Do any stand out?

[DougLite]

Quiet? Samsung. Nobody else comes close nowadays. Samsung's SP P120 has an idle noise that SR measured at 38.9 dB/A @ 3mm, making it the quietest drive they have ever tested - it even puts out less noise volume than the 2.5" Seagate Savvio :eek: The P120 is the only 3.5" drive that SR has ever tested to come in below 40 dB/A. Seek noise may also be fine tuned by using the Hitachi Feature Tool to adjust AAM settings.

Quiet with top-flight performance? WD2500KS, Hitachi T7K250. Seagate drives are quiet, unless you get one locked in AAM performance mode, but the performance isn't there. Maxtor does pretty good on idle noise, but their drives run pretty hot.

[tdg]

Current lowest prices from ZZF...

200 GB = $88 = .44/GB
250 GB = $98 = .39/GB
300 GB = $121 = .40/GB
400 GB = $199 = .49/GB

Sweet spot is 250/300 GB, basically the same price per GB.

[Ripped85]

i'm about to order..my only problem is...i have a Asus K8V SE mobo...a lot of these HDs are SATA II...can my mobo support that?

[Ripped85]

and also..that samsung is regulat ATA..isn't SATA better?

I'm leaning towards this...

Western Digital Caviar SE WD1200JS 120GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

But it's interface is SATA II..donno if my mobo can use that.

[DougLite]

Samsung makes both PATA and SATA drives :cool:

[Ripped85]

So which SATA Samsung would you reccommend?

[DougLite]

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101018 is a nice unit.

[Ripped85]

damn site is sold out and newegg doesn't carry it

[Ripped85]

No other sites are carrying it..so what else can i get besides samsung?

[DougLite]

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100594-2

[Ripped85]

thanks man..ordered it

[awdark]

:( My mobo supports RAID now, I see 250-300gig drives at frys for about $90
With my current 160+80 gigs of storage I am soo tempted...

Samsungs are quiet though? How do they compare to Seagates? I have a 200gb seagate and its beautifully quiet. My WD160 is on balls and its the whinieist device in my whole computer.

[DougLite]

Does your WD drive have a silver top? If so, you'd pleasantly suprised by one of the newer black topped FDB units.

Samsung drives are in a league of their own in terms of quiet operation.

[MrGuvernment]

i'm about to order..my only problem is...i have a Asus K8V SE mobo...a lot of these HDs are SATA II...can my mobo support that?


Yes - it will work. - SATAII is backwards compatible with SATA - u just wont get the features of SATA II unless your chipset supports it.

[kamxam]

Space is starting to become a limitation in my system so i went with the 400GB WD myself. (Plus i wanted a 16mb cache..lol).
I'm tending to shy away from some of the lower end maxtor's tho. Don't get me wrong, they make good drives, but there are better ones imho out there if you look hard enough.
Just my 2 cents....