Price Guide, January 2006: Storage

Introduction

We'd like to welcome you to our latest edition of our storage price guide. Don't forget to check out our handy-dandy RTPE, http://labs.anandtech.com, for up-to-the-minute hardware prices. Our RTPE's database has been rapidly growing on a daily basis, bringing you more information on any of your hardware needs.

Sometimes, the best deals can be had with mail-in rebates, and if you don't mind dealing with them, there are many PATA drives with MIR's. There are also a couple 1.5Gbps drives that are quite decently priced as well.

Although not the lowest prices, there are many outstanding DVDR's at great prices. We would also like to mention that the SAS drives have finally come down in price and are now on at the same level as the Ultra320 drives.

Here we go, starting off with the 3.0Gbps SATA drives.

SATA - 3.0Gbps

We're seeing quite a few of the SATA 3.0Gbps drives have had some significant price reductions over the course of the past few weeks. We feel the Western Digital 3.0Gbps 250GB 7200RPM 16MB Caviar SE16 [RTPE: WD2500KS] appears to offer the best value. It's on sale for about $110, making that $0.44 per GB. There are a few other drives going for nearly the same price per GB like the Samsung 3.0Gbps 250GB 7200RPM 8MB SpinPoint P [RTPE: SP2504C] going for $112. Do note that this Samsung SpinPoint P drive has an 8MB cache rather than 16MB like the Western Digital drive above.

We would also like to point out that the 250GB, 300GB and the 400GB Seagate 7200.9 drives have decreased approximately $50 since our last analysis. Our RTPE is picking up on two 500GB drives, one from Hitachi and another from Seagate. The Hitachi 3.0Gbps 500GB 7200RPM 8MB Deskstar 7K500 [RTPE: HDS725050KLA360] is going for $363 while the Seagate 3.0Gbps 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Barracuda 7200.9 [RTPE: ST3500641AS] is on sale for $342.