[rescue] WANTED: Older IDE/ATA/PATA 500gb drives

[Lionel Peterson]

On Oct 12, 2009, at 8:25 AM, John Ruschmeyer <jruschme at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/12/09 8:07 AM, "Lionel Peterson" <lionel4287 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Oct 12, 2009, at 7:15 AM, Peter Corlett <abuse at cabal.org.uk>  
>> wrote:
>>> On 9 Oct 2009, at 21:00, stephen price wrote:
>>>
>>> Both Queensway Computer Markets and the Tottenham Court Road shops
>>> seem to think it's still 2006 when it comes to hard disk pricing. I
>>> was quoted #55 (about $80) for a bog standard 80GB 3.5" SATA disk in
>>> one place. You could probably hear me laughing in their face from  
>>> the
>>> other side of the Atlantic.
>>
>> There is great compression in HD prices here in US as well.
>>
>> At $work we needed about a dozen SATA drives for desktops. A 40 gig
>> drive is not an option, 80 gig is about $60-70, and 1TB drives are  
>> $100.
>>
>> We decided to order 16 1TB drives to upgrade a backip storage box and
>> re-use 300 Gig HDs that are being replaced in desktops. Complete
>> overkill, but a very cost-effective way to solve two problems at  
>> once.
>
> I think it's got something to do with not turning inventory over  
> fast enough
> vs. not taking a loss.
>
> Some friends and I have a favorite story... Many years ago, back  
> when 340MB
> was the new drive size, some friends and I went to a local computer  
> show
> with the idea of buying a drive. We walked up to this one vendor who  
> had
> every size possible from 80MB to 340MB. We asked him for the price  
> of the
> 340; "$200," he replied. We then asked about the prices of the other  
> drives.
> It turned out that the range of pricing from 80MB to 340MB was $15.00.

The money is in the motor/electronics, not the media.

> A few years later, I saw the same thing with between 10 and 20GB  
> drives. I
> could just imagine the mental debate: "Do I get the 20GB or just get  
> the
> 10GB and still have enough for a BigMac?"

I recently went out to get two small SATA drive, just for OS installs,  
and a 160 Gig drive was $55, a 1 TB drive was about $30 more on sale.  
I went for the Terabyte...

> USB memory sticks seem to be the worst in this regard. At my local  
> Target
> (discount department store), I can get a 1GB stick as an impulse by  
> for
> $8.99. If I want to walk back to the Electronics department, I can  
> get the
> 4GB version of the same stick for $9.99.

At microcenter.com they are between $3.50-2.50/ Gig, with larger  
drives on the low end of that range (2 gig is $7, 32 gig is $70)

The price difference at Target you describe has to do with more than  
simple pricing-as you said, they are soaking the impulse buyer, one  
that forgot the wanted one until they got to the checkout line.

Lionel