After reading the /. story about IBM trying to build a 100TB tape drive, I found myself over on Pricewatch.com (which lamely uses frames and makes it hard to bookmark the page I want you to see). I like figuring out three things:

  1. Where's the current sweet spot in SATA drive prices?
    250GB for $120
  2. How much does a Terabyte cost?
    $480 buys you four 250GB disks
  3. How much space can $1000 buy?
    2TB and you'd have money left over to pay for shipping on the order

That's freakin' amazing!

I just wish laptop sized hard disks didn't lag so far behind. This 80GB disk seems downright tiny in comparison to what I could buy in a 3.5 inch form factor.

Posted by jzawodn at December 26, 2004 02:24 PM

Reader Comments
# Steve said:

Hard disk prices have fallen 50% since the start of 2004 and the capacity per spindle has risen 30%.

This is especially great for those media intensive applications like P/DVR - can't wait to see commercial PC's ship with 1Tb storage as standard - maybe in 2005?

on December 26, 2004 06:54 PM
# Scott Johnson said:

I just built a RAID server here at the house a couple of years ago with 4x80GB drives (the sweet spot at that time). I think I just may need to bump it up to 250GB drives soon now that you've mentioned this dramatic decrease in prices. Each drive is larger than my available 240GB. That will be VERY nice, and it sounds like the new drives will cost less than the 80GB models did. Being a media-hungry pack rat has never been so good.

on December 26, 2004 09:45 PM
# werty said:

You should try pricegrabber.com, I used to be a big fan of pricewatch, but found the navigation too hard to use...I made the pricegrabber switch like 2 years ago.

Is there any drive larger than 250 now? I remember making the switch to 120's, both western digital and ibm, and finding that they both liked to die on me... are the 250's just as bad?

on December 27, 2004 08:49 AM
# James said:

werty,

Yes there are some 300 - 400 gig harddrives - they are still kinda of pricey just because their not everywhere like compusa or mainstream computer stores. But you can get them online at compusa.com

James

on December 27, 2004 10:11 AM
# Willie Crawford said:

What is the biggest limitation on increasing available disk space on laptops. I know space is a factor but everything seems to "mini" now anyway.

Maybe a separate disk space architecture is needed for laptops???

Willie Crawford - Not a techie :-)

on December 28, 2004 07:54 AM
# Bill said:

James,
I picked up a Maxtor 300GB SATA drive at CompUSA a couple weeks before Xmas for $200 (in store instant rebate of about $70).

on December 28, 2004 07:57 AM
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