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

[John Ruschmeyer]

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.

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?"

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.

John