What is going on with HDD prices ?!?!?!

[jagabo]

Yes, the slower drives are good for media servers and HTPCs. They're quieter, consume less power, and generate less heat.

[edDV]

Yes, the slower drives are good for media servers and HTPCs. They're quieter, consume less power, and generate less heat.

Yep, my media server is now all green. But my house is heated with computers. Now I'll need more wood fires.

[dragonkeeper]

These Seagates are 5900 RPM Green drives but perfect in the home server for video playout. I pulled the smaller 7200 RPM drives for use in the workstations.

To me it seems that in recent years Seagate quality has suffered. Initial drive quality hovers around the50/50 mark and may even be as low as 60/40. If you happen to make it past the break in period the drives are great I've been using the Spin Point or WD. I wished i had order drives a month ago when i started looking, but i put it off because i was waiting on another $79 sale. Looks like i may have to wait to mid summer or next Christmas now.

[edDV]

These Seagates are 5900 RPM Green drives but perfect in the home server for video playout. I pulled the smaller 7200 RPM drives for use in the workstations.

To me it seems that in recent years Seagate quality has suffered. Initial drive quality hovers around the50/50 mark and may even be as low as 60/40. If you happen to make it past the break in period the drives are great I've been using the Spin Point or WD. I wished i had order drives a month ago when i started looking, but i put it off because i was waiting on another $79 sale. Looks like i may have to wait to mid summer or next Christmas now.

The only out of norm Seagate failures that I heard about were some lots of 2.5 inch notebook drives.

[alegator]

there should be removable covers over screws holding it together then. they may be under stickers, or plugin covers.

Everything went smooth, it was very easy to unscrew it, the case slided open and extracted the two drives. Two Maxtor 250GB IDE drives, old but healthy!

[edDV]

there should be removable covers over screws holding it together then. they may be under stickers, or plugin covers.

Everything went smooth, it was very easy to unscrew it, the case slided open and extracted the two drives. Two Maxtor 250GB IDE drives, old but healthy!

This is supposed to be done in a clean room while wearing a bunny suit.

[alegator]

there should be removable covers over screws holding it together then. They may be under stickers, or plugin covers.

everything went smooth, it was very easy to unscrew it, the case slided open and extracted the two drives. Two maxtor 250gb ide drives, old but healthy! :d

this is supposed to be done in a clean room while wearing a bunny suit.

Yeah, next time I'll rent one....sorry!!!!

[dragonkeeper]

The only out of norm Seagate failures that I heard about were some lots of 2.5 inch notebook drives.

This is an OEM Seagate drive but I believe it to be similar to the drive being offered by BB. It may not be out of norm but according to reviews on Newegg 26% of users gave this drive 1 egg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148681

In comparison to the Samsung's drive which has 8% giving it 1egg, also the drive seems to be out selling similarly priced 2 TB drives being offered by other manufactures.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245

The Western Digital Green drives seen to be faring worse but i believe it's due to 4K clusters. A lot of devices choke on 4k clustrs and people don't know to change the cluster size, in some cases a firmware issue may resolve the 4K cluster issue.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514

I was planing to build a FreeNas server with 10 drives, so I did a lot of research before deciding on which drives to fork over $1k for, just wished i would have purchased then instead of waiting for a sale, now I'm SOL .

[Noahtuck]

Yes, the slower drives are good for media servers and HTPCs. They're quieter, consume less power, and generate less heat.

Yep, my media server is now all green. But my house is heated with computers. Now I'll need more wood fires.

LOL!!!

10 years ago my friends used to ask me if my house glowed at night and if they could see it from space!!

LOL!!!

[TBoneit]

I recently covered my HDD needs with a 2TB Hitachi for $64 @ Fry's. I figured I'd get more in Black Friday sales.

Then I lost a 2009 1.5TB and now I'm screwed. I'm going shopping locally for hard drives tomorrow.

Yikes 27F degrees temp outside.

If 2009 it should still be under warranty, did you check? I know it stinks waiting but the way drive proces and supply are right now still worth it.

One thing I've learned with replacement drives is to run them awhile and check them with the makers diagnostics.

[TBoneit]

The only out of norm Seagate failures that I heard about were some lots of 2.5 inch notebook drives.

This is an OEM Seagate drive but I believe it to be similar to the drive being offered by BB. It may not be out of norm but according to reviews on Newegg 26% of users gave this drive 1 egg.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148681

In comparison to the Samsung's drive which has 8% giving it 1egg, also the drive seems to be out selling similarly priced 2 TB drives being offered by other manufactures.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245

The Western Digital Green drives seen to be faring worse but i believe it's due to 4K clusters. A lot of devices choke on 4k clustrs and people don't know to change the cluster size, in some cases a firmware issue may resolve the 4K cluster issue.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514

I was planing to build a FreeNas server with 10 drives, so I did a lot of research before deciding on which drives to fork over $1k for, just wished i would have purchased then instead of waiting for a sale, now I'm SOL .

Have you seen the way Newegg packs the drives? Not good sometimes and I suspect it even depends on what warehouse they come from.

[edDV]

$229 for 2TB !!!

[aedipuss]

that $229 samsung f4 is what i use in my nas's. i have 8 that i paid $49 for at newegg..... they run cool and quiet but at $229 i'd expect an ssd

[TBoneit]

$229 for 2TB !!!

AT least the first quarter of 2012 before improvement from what I've been reading

[TBoneit]

that $229 samsung f4 is what i use in my nas's. i have 8 that i paid $49 for at newegg..... they run cool and quiet but at $229 i'd expect an ssd

You might expect but you would be way off. You might get a 128Gb SSD around that price. Not a 2TB.

[dragonkeeper]

Have you seen the way Newegg packs the drives? Not good sometimes and I suspect it even depends on what warehouse they come from.

I have heard of issues with packing but I have not had an issue, "knock on wood", for some odd reason when I order drives less than a TB they come from CA, anything over a TB comes from NJ.

[dragonkeeper]

that $229 samsung f4 is what i use in my nas's. i have 8 that i paid $49 for at newegg..... they run cool and quiet but at $229 i'd expect an ssd

Yah that's the sale I was waiting for to happen again, I was planning to swing ten of them at that time. But then the floods came ce la vie. For a media center they are indeed great drives, initially I was worried about the low spindle speed but the drives can transfer data faster than my 7200 rpm drives.

As TBoneit stated manufactures estimate things should be better by end of first quarter. I think it will be mid to end of second quarter before we start to see prices close to what we are accustom to.

[fritzi93]

I just checked and Best Buy now has that Seagate 2 TB drive listed for $99.99. Huh?

That's really puzzling. Both Newegg and TigerDirect list it for $249.99. I should have thought their price would be more in line with the other retailers after the sale was over.

Are they, as jagabo says, really so clueless?

Anyway, mine seems just fine, having passed every test I've thrown at it. I was a *little* worried about DOA or infant death considering the poor reviews. But of course the bias is towards complaints in reviews, anger being a strong motivator. A close reading reveals that many of the reviewers have grossly overestimated their own tech levels.

[jagabo]

My guess is that Best Buy buys a big batch of drives and sets the price according to what they paid for them. When inventory is too high they have a sale to reduce it (hence the recent $75 sale price, and restoration of their normal $99 price). They don't monitor spot market prices so they won't notice a change until the next time they place an order. So they don't know they're sitting on a gold mine. NewEgg and other distributors only have a few days inventory on hand at any point in time. So they know what the spot market price is and set prices accordingly.

[fritzi93]

Yes, I suspected that. It would be more sensible for them to set prices according to inventory replacement costs.

[intracube]

Have you seen the way Newegg packs the drives? Not good sometimes and I suspect it even depends on what warehouse they come from.

I have heard of issues with packing but I have not had an issue, "knock on wood", for some odd reason when I order drives less than a TB they come from CA, anything over a TB comes from NJ.

Amazon (UK) give the 'option' of ordering selected products with minimalist packaging - they call it 'Frustration-Free Packaging'.

Ordered a replacement HDD a few months ago and wasn't impressed by the lack of protection the new packaging seemed to offer, so went for 'Traditional' instead - in the hope the disk would be better protected with the standard plastic/foam packaging.

They sent me the disk in a generic brown box, rattling around loose with no padding

[edDV]

Best Buy and Fry's will take advantage of the situation and offer drives below market price just to get people in the stores to buy other stuff. Note that they don't offer those prices online. As said, Newegg and Amazon don't stock a large inventory so must follow the price increases. This is similar to the spot gasoling market.

[Bjs]

$129 + free post for 2TB Samsungs ... smaller capacity drive prices are heading up ... in some case doubled.

[aedipuss]

if you are in any way shape or form may need a hard drive before spring '12 get what you can now!

There is demand of about 180 million drives for the fourth quarter but only 100 to 120 million will ship

seriously there will be no drives around for black friday or christmas sales.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-57320282-64/hard-disk-shortage-will-get-worse-piper-...20&tag=nl.e703

[deadrats]

i just checked the prices at the microcenter in nj:

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0375679

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0349598

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0365152

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0334293

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0331601

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0378062

prices are somewhat up but they're not totally out of control; i know what the reports say but i really doubt that prices will skyrocket and stay high for 2+ years.

[edDV]

i just checked the prices at the microcenter in nj:

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0375679

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0349598

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0365152

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0334293

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0331601

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0378062

prices are somewhat up but they're not totally out of control; i know what the reports say but i really doubt that prices will skyrocket and stay high for 2+ years.

Not if international capitalism works. Interesting experiment.

[Noahtuck]

$129 + free post for 2TB Samsungs ... smaller capacity drive prices are heading up ... in some case doubled.

If you read the first post in this thread, mine, and look at newegg, larger drives already doubled in price and smaller drives doubled and tripled in price 5 days ago!!!

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/340459-What-is-going-on-with-HDD-prices-!-!-!?p=2118164&viewfull=1#post2118164

And @ Deadrats,

When a 2TB WD HDD went from $134.99 to $249.99, I'd say they are already beyond "out of control"!!!!
LOL!!!

And no, they won't be out of control for the next 2 years, but when they double and triple, even for 6 months, it's a bad thing!!!

[edDV]

And no, they won't be out of control for the next 2 years, but when they double and triple, even for 6 months, it's a bad thing!!!

Things happen, it is all about the response.

We aren't dealing with the gov't here.

[aedipuss]

wait i said spring of '12, that's not 2 years away, it's this spring unless the tardis has been messing with us again?

[deadrats]

When a 2TB WD HDD went from $134.99 to $249.99, I'd say they are already beyond "out of control"!!!!
LOL!!!

And no, they won't be out of control for the next 2 years, but when they double and triple, even for 6 months, it's a bad thing!!!

the immediate price hikes are nothing more than a combination of a knee jerk reaction and good old "free market"* business practices i.e. excuses to price gouge.

but let's assume for the sake of argument they quintuple for the next 6 months, in all honesty who cares? unless you absolutely need to buy a hard drive to replace one that has died, you won't really be effected. i currently have all my important porn, i mean documents, backed up and have three 1.5tb hdd's in my main pc and another four 500gb hdd's and two 640gb hdd's as backups just in case i need a hdd and a 500gb external hdd.

i can easily wait out a brief half year price hike in hard drives and i think most diy'ers are probably in a similar position as they upgraded to bigger and faster hard drives.

*i would like to point out that "free market" is an insider term for "free to screw your fellow man every chance you get and if they complain denounce them as a pinko".