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Are hard drive prices coming back down to normal levels?

D

DrewSG3

Senior member
I remember after the tsunami, hard drive prices shot up because of the shortage. Amazon has a 3TB WD green drive for $139

A good deal? Its only for Blu-ray movie storage
 
When were they high priced ? Their dirt cheap for about 2 years or so now, thx to SSD.

Remember there was a time if you had a 250GB hard drive you were the king of the block.
 
Define normal. A 3TB Barracuda can be snagged for $120 which amounts to $0.04/GB...yes, that is 4 cents per GB. I never recall a 100GB hdd costing $4 or a 500GB having a price tag of $20, or a 1TB at $40...do you? I'd say we have a new and very much improved normal.
 
tweakboy said:
When were they high priced ? Their dirt cheap for about 2 years or so now, thx to SSD.

Remember there was a time if you had a 250GB hard drive you were the king of the block.
Click to expand...

Back just before the flood you could snag sales of 1TBs for about $50 and 2TBs for around $80.
 
To answer the question in general, HDD prices appear to be inching down. A couple of 2TB HDDs dropped to the $100 mark a few weeks ago. Still a ways to go before they return to the pre-flood levels.
 
Prices are coming down, but appear to be still slightly elevated compared to summer of 2011.
skinflint.co.uk keeps tabs on price developments (from the cheapest offer in the EU), that helps with tracking the price development.
3TB disks are at times below the before-flood level, 2TB disks mostly still slightly above.
 
tweakboy said:
When were they high priced ? Their dirt cheap for about 2 years or so now, thx to SSD.

Remember there was a time if you had a 250GB hard drive you were the king of the block.
Click to expand...

Nah, go back further..

If you had a full height 5 1/4" 80MB maxstor scsi drive you were the man
or if your home computer, playing hobbit or zork, had 512k mem and a seagate st-225 running off a western digital mfm controller, you were the envy of all the guys at the local Nibbles and Bytes store.

lol

ST_225_20MB_drive_and_WDC_controller.jpg
 
Prices are crap. Just over a year ago we had 2TB drives at $80 on sale frequently. If anything, that should be the price of 3TB drives now.
 
When I bought my 1TB Blacks they were $89-99. I just bought a couple 3TB Greens at $129 each. Not too bad. I don't recall ever seeing good 2TB drives under $100 but I honestly didn't look much after grabbing my Blacks back then.
 
3TB drives external and what not were selling around ~100-110 before the flood. Even cheaper if you got a slickdeal.
 
LOL_Wut_Axel said:
Prices are crap. Just over a year ago we had 2TB drives at $80 on sale frequently. If anything, that should be the price of 3TB drives now.
Click to expand...

Worse than that actually. $80-90 was regular price. And if you watched slickdeals you could get 2TB for $60 after rebate. Current prices are still nowhere near that level.
 
CryHavoc said:
Nah, go back further..

If you had a full height 5 1/4" 80MB maxstor scsi drive you were the man
or if your home computer, playing hobbit or zork, had 512k mem and a seagate st-225 running off a western digital mfm controller, you were the envy of all the guys at the local Nibbles and Bytes store.

lol

ST_225_20MB_drive_and_WDC_controller.jpg
Click to expand...

I remember thinking Wow, I can get a 40 Meg ST225 for under $250!

Remember things like low level formatting.

Memories.
 
hal2kilo said:
I remember thinking Wow, I can get a 40 Meg ST225 for under $250!

Remember things like low level formatting.
Memories.
Click to expand...

I absolutely hated entering in the bad track map..unless the drive had 10 or less. Talk about monotony!!

Remember these debug codes?

G=C800:5 for WD controllers
or
G=C800:FFF for adaptec

lol
 
Isn't it almost two years now? Back then, I remember buying two Seagate 1TB drives for $40 each, I think. I got five 2TB HDDs for $80 each and one 2TB for $60. I can't believe prices still haven't dropped back down to that level yet. Of course, I haven't bought a single HDD since then, and I'm still waiting so I can upgrade my NAS.
 
No, it's only been a year now. And I'm also in the same boat as you are. I have file server that I need to upgrade, but with the hard drive prices as they are right now it will cost a small fortune, so I'm holding out as long as I can. Spending a load of money only to run out of space in a year does not seem like a worthwhile endeavor to me.
 
hal2kilo said:
I remember thinking Wow, I can get a 40 Meg ST225 for under $250!

Remember things like low level formatting.

Memories.
Click to expand...

Oh, please, you had it easy... 🙂

I can remember when 5 1/4" floppy drives were over 200 bucks. 🙂

(And i walked to school in the snow, uphill, both ways 🙂 )

I've seen an 8" floppy, but THAT was before my time. There was a computer store that used to be in town that had a 20MB hard drive in a glass case. This thing was about 12" long, 8" wide, and 6" tall as I recall. It was huge. It made MFM drives look tiny.
 
I just paid $99 for my new 2TB drive. I wanted a 3, but I'll be adding another HD in the next year, so I figured I'd wait on the 3 and just get that later when they've dropped a bit.

The first HD I ever had was 80MB, and I remember when we upgraded to a 250MB drive and we thought that was awesome. My friend had a 750MB drive and I remember chastising him, asking "how are you ever going to fill that up?"

The first computer I ever owned all on my own had a 2GB drive, and I purchased a second 6GB drive a year later, and I think I paid close to $200 for it. So, yeah, storage is a little cheaper now.
 
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I bought several 2TB green drives 3-4 years ago in the $69-$79 range. Yes, $69 for 2TB. We have a LONG way to go before the prices are un-gauged.
 
BladeVenom said:
Just for the record, 25 July 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Thailand_floods

I still can't find hard drives as cheap as I was buying them for a year and a half ago.

Normally after that amount of time, you would be able to get twice as much for the same price. Now you can't even equal year and a half old prices.
Click to expand...

there have been other causes too. Companies selling off their HDD divisions and leaving the market and rising cost of components due to global economic downturn also greatly contribute to the elevated HDD prices. In addition to the disasterous thailand floods of 2011
 
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