Why are Dell Hard Drives so expensive!

[Zillatech]

Other than the fact your buying from Dell and you know you're paying a premium because of that (ie: the price on the WD RE3) How the Hell can Dell justify these prices for 7200rpm SATA Drives???
This looks like total BS to me, blatant price gouging! Is there any other logical or justified reason these prices are so high?

750GB 7.2k RPM Serial ATA 3Gbps 3.5-in Cabled Hard Drive, Customer Install
$594.99

1TB,SATA,7.2k,3.5in Cabled Hard Drive, Customer Install
$476.99

1TB SATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive 32MB 7200RPM 3.5IN RE3
$177.99

These are NOT errors on the Web Page, they are consistent when trying to order a PE T110 / T310 as well.

 

[fluffmonster]

so don't buy one from dell?

 

[Mark R]

The prices are that high because that's what people will pay, if they want full support and rapid warranty replacement from a single supplier.

There is a large mark-up on the actual cost of those drives. It's a matter of opinion whether it is or isn't price gouging.

 

[shortylickens]

I think everyone on Anandtech needs to take Econ 201 before they complain about any prices.

 

[RebateMonger]

Dell makes all its profit on add-ons. Especially on servers.

If folks bought their servers without adding accessories, Dell would lose a ton of money.

Regarding Dell server memory and disks specifically, note that all the server memory is ECC (which is pricier than non-ECC) and I'm pretty sure all the disks are Enterprise versions which, again, are pricier.

The last four "servers" I bought for my business:
Dell 400SC - $125
Dell SC420 - $225
Dell 1600SC - $400
Dell SC440 - $200
You can't even buy a server motherboard for those prices.

 

[tcsenter]

The prices are that high because that's what people will pay, if they want full support and rapid warranty replacement from a single supplier.

And guaranteed not to have any compatibility/interoperability 'surprises'. But yeah, mostly its just a really nice markup, like buying a memory module straight from HP that costs 3x as much as the going retail/channel price for the same module.

 

[corkyg]

Reminds me of when we used to get media condemnation for the $50 hammer and $25 screw driver in government contracts. We actually wanted to give the government those items, but, reality was, government regulations require all items in a contract to have added in their fair share of the General and Administrative costs to the company (G&A). That is what inflated the price. So, perhaps Dell is doing that to keep from losing money on things they do not build but just resell.

 

[bruceb]

People are dumb and don't what stuff costs. I buy my computer initially with a reasonable size drive, based on total cost. Later, if needed I add my own drives for more storage at a lot less cost. Personally, I like Western Digital .. they seem to be very good and decent cost.

 

[Emulex]

also factor in warranty. if you are buying a server (say hp or dell) and it has a factory 3/3/3 onsite nbd warranty - that is not what you are buying from western digital through newegg.

i'd guess newegg is giving you a 30 day return if defective; or deal with western digital - neither of which is going to have a new drive fedex'd to you overnight when you call at 7:30 pm Eastern to file a ticket. (hp will fedex from a western warehouse or same day from a local).

This service costs money. especially since they buy oem drives - which they take responsibility for the warranty, even firmware sometimes. If the package was mishandled and the replacement drive was screwed when dell drop shops from their TN warehouse - dell just bought you a drive - or if you drop the drive and tell a white lie - dell bought you a drive. if you have DMR warranty and your drive "Fails" dell buys you a drive (DMR is for sensitive information - you never put it in hp/dell's hands - they just keep giving you new ones for security sake you destroy the bad drive/ssd lol)

 

[Zillatech]

I think everyone on Anandtech needs to take Econ 201 before they complain about any prices.

It was a simple question, no need for smart ass comments

 

[Zillatech]

People are dumb and don't what stuff costs. I buy my computer initially with a reasonable size drive, based on total cost. Later, if needed I add my own drives for more storage at a lot less cost. Personally, I like Western Digital .. they seem to be very good and decent cost.

Yeah, that's what I would do, I was just window shopping a little and just thought I'd ask the question to see if there was any other reason for the high prices. I would just get the minimum disks, then throw in some 1TB WD RE3's after the fact.

 

[SparkyJJO]

You can't even buy a server motherboard for those prices.

Sure you can. I have a dual socket Xeon board I got for $17 and a quad socket Opteron board I got for $90

 

[shortylickens]

It was a simple question, no need for smart ass comments

You think I was being a smart ass? You really need college.
This is BASIC supply and demand curves. And they arent even shifting, you're just moving up and down one curve.
If thousands of other folks are paying those prices, thats what they sell for.

 

[Zillatech]

I understand Supply and Demand but the prices were so far out of whack I thought maybe there was something else going on since I don't buy lots of server stuff on a regular basis.

 

[Tsavo]

Look up IBM internal drives on Newegg.

Dell doesn't have anything on them!

 

[Emulex]

Dell doesn't have the IBM (nor hp) firmware on their drives either. which is fine tuned to operate with the concurrent version of the smart-array (or ibm's raid 8) as well. this firmware is upgraded every time they upgrade the raid controller firmware to make the drive more robust. It's more than TLER.

For instance they may decide all 500-1000GB old school single port sata drives sold from XX to YY are now aging; lets make them more aggressive to error out and the controller will know what they are doing because the firmware knows by looking at the drive model and firmware how to work . This is really important because some crappy drives(ahem seagate 7200.11) got into the channel. Now what happens when you take that spare drive that never got the firmware update and throw it in the box. it's not going to update it while the controller is live (think raid drive fail; insert replacement). so it has to know about the quirks of the older firmware drive too.

however there is no way to know about that generic seagate that has newer firmware and its intent; CER(tler); etc.

Good car analogy:
Car manufacturers patch their firmware (many modules in today's cars) to fix bugs and to adjust settings as they get feedback from the motor when it is serviced (or using telemetry in really modern cards). So they can say at 50K we reflash the firmware to take into consideration the door locks down open as quickly; there is more blowback in the pistons so alter the recirc/egr system to work more efficiently since we didn't have 100K cars on the road to provide enough simulated data or the data veered from.

You wouldn't get such features if you built your own car using the same bosch/etc parts from the factories. even if you bought the same bosch motronic that all german cars like to use (or base off) you write your own software and do not get benefits of the masses.

And remember that 3 year nbd warranty? I just uplifted my server to 5 years 4h 24x7 365 warranty - that means that SATA drive (industry standard is 1year for sata or sata with sas controller) will now carry a 5 year 4hr warranty. Doesn't matter if i have 25 drives or 2 drives in the box that warranty on the box uplifts all those drives. I don't even have to buy the drives at the same time since its logical to buy some drives and fill out later. 4 hours to have a dude on site to put a new drive in for 5 years?

One potential visit on a holiday sunday christmas would eat more than the cost of the drive - given that those folks are all outsourced. And yes i've had a dude out on christmas to replace a drive (it was a tape drive never the less same theory). Dude said he got paid the standard rate to be on call then each job got triple pay on top of being paid for being on-call.

Is that crazy? Nope. it is demanded by large corporations and SOP for many government/edu/higher-ed agencies. you want to sell dell servers to us? you better have ever damn part time 5 within 30 miles/30minutes of our (county,school,campus). That is a very real scenario. Fair enough if they are buying 200 servers - the benefit of living near such - is that you can get stock from them even as a small business/consumer.

But it does add up into the price. Since we all know a RE4 2TB drive is going to eat it within 5 years - probably several times if i run it over its 30-40% duty cycle.

not going to happen on any sata drive you get off newegg.

 

[shortylickens]

I understand Supply and Demand but the prices were so far out of whack I thought maybe there was something else going on since I don't buy lots of server stuff on a regular basis.

Fair enough.
Dell is a successful company. Regardless of whether you personally like their products. Ditto Apple, Bose, and Monster Cable.
They get to be successful by setting appropriate prices. Also known as equilibrium. They know there are more than enough fools willing to pay ridiculous prices and keep them in business. Its a great scam. Selling crap like its gold. Given the intelligence of the average American consumer, that sound like a racket I need to get into.

Also, for reference:
http://www.dell.com/outlet

 

[Emulex]

i'd fire anyone that even suggested dell outlet for server parts lol.

that server rebootin' every other week randomly? cool we'll take it back and sell it on the outlet to some fool that won't have your luck. (aka scratch n dent)

 

[mutz]

note that all the server memory is ECC (which is pricier than non-ECC)

1 thing is, not all server motherboard require ECC memory, some support both ECC and non-ECC.
2nd, is ECC memory is not essentially pricier then non-ECC memory, it is quite a myth, you can get 3*2GB for about the same price.

 

[RebateMonger]

1 thing is, not all server motherboard require ECC memory, some support both ECC and non-ECC.
2nd, is ECC memory is not essentially pricier then non-ECC memory, it is quite a myth, you can get 3*2GB for about the same price.

I was saying that all DELL servers are sold with ECC memory.

ECC memory has always been pricier than non-ECC memory. Usually by about 50%. Even when non-ECC was $5 a gigabyte, same-brand unbuffered ECC was $10 a gigabyte. I know because I was buying plenty of both at the time. If ECC memory was the same price as non-ECC, then we'd be using ECC memory on all computers.

Here's current Newegg.com prices for 3x2GB memory modules:

Non-ECC runs from $120 to $150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&PageSize=20

ECC runs from $168 to $255
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...CE&PageSize=20

To compare apples-to-apples, though, looks like Cruical and Kingston non-ECC are about $140 and those brands' unbuffered ECC are $170.

 

[mutz]

ECC memory has always been pricier than non-ECC memory. Usually by about 50%. Even when non-ECC was $5 a gigabyte, same-brand unbuffered ECC was $10 a gigabyte. I know because I was buying plenty of both at the time. If ECC memory was the same price as non-ECC, then we'd be using ECC memory on all computers.

yep, you are right,
as for desktop (up to 12GB should be enough) this difference isn't so relevant, though with servers, it can get pretty high,
buffered memory even takes it minimum 20$ higher.

btw, not sure about dell (though probably), IBM and HP memory can get very highly priced, in the range of hundred dollar and more for 6 or 8 GB modules (and even 4).

 

[Soulkeeper]

Because you are paying for all them labor costs involved ...
It takes a lot of energy to purchase a seagate (or whoever) drive, scrape the labels off and put your own labels on
That's my best half-joking response atleast.

 

[airdata]

The last four "servers" I bought for my business:
Dell 400SC - $125
Dell SC420 - $225
Dell 1600SC - $400
Dell SC440 - $200
You can't even buy a server motherboard for those prices.

I got 9 poweredge 1850's w\ dual 3.2ghz cpu's, 1gb, 2x 36gb 15k, dvd/cdrw for $250 back in feb/march off ebay.

Was a little weird picking them up because of how dirt cheap it was.

Apple does the same thing though w\ price gouging... No idea why they don't fix this stuff. When you're customizing a system on dell's site, it's pretty silly when it says "upgrade to" and the upgrade pricing is much more than the retail price of that part... so it's not even an upgrade because they're not even considering the existing part being upgraded into the equation.

 

[Phynaz]

Yeah, that's what I would do

Is that what you would do if your job was dependent upon this purchase?

 

[mutz]

Is that what you would do if your job was dependent upon this purchase?

they're prices are quite ridiculous though, dell servers and workstations, IBM ones, HP hardware, they all seem to take a huge premium on they're equipment,
you can have a look at IBM P6 servers, they cost tons of money for a single or dual processor setup with few HDD enclosed within a rack, even for used HW,
the enterprise market seems terribly overpriced.