500GB> Hard Drive Space?

[BobbyDouglas]

I need around 500GB of hard drive space, I could settle for 400gb, but somewhere around 500 would be ideal. I can purchase two drives instead of paying a massive amount of a 500gb drive.

 

I have been able to find the following deals so far:

- Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JD 320GB SATA150 - $.362/GB (limit 1)

- Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JS 250GB SATA150 - $.3992/GB (no limit)

(shipping to 85233 is included)

 

I've noticed that quite often a drive will incorrectly read the total storage, and a 320GB drive might only hold 300GB of space. Not sure if there is a set % that every drive is off, if not then that might be a deciding factor.

 

I've checked out PriceGrabber, and these two drives seem to be the best deal for having around 500GB of space.

 

I also have the option of going with ATA100/133, but after looking at prices, it appears there isn't much of a price difference (matter of a few dollars) to warrant the slower speed.

 

Any suggestions?

[jitspoe]

Best Buy had a nice deal for a 300GB WD drive for $70 after rebates. Unfortunately it's out of stock pretty much everywhere. You might get lucky, though.

 

As for the size difference in what the drive claims to be and what it actually is, storage is generally measured in multiples of 1024 (which is a power of 2), but manufacturers will commonly use the "technical" measurements, which are multiples of 1000, so, for 500 gigs, you'd have:

 

500 (gigs) * 1024 (megs) * 1024 (KB) * 1024 (bytes) = 536870912000 bytes

 

vs.

 

500 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000 = 500000000000 bytes.

 

You'd need about 540 "gigabytes" to actually get 500 gigs of storage.

[weechrd]

It is just my opinion (from experience) that to lose 500Gb of data can take the sparkle out of your day. I would go for two drives and only lose half of your data if a drive dies.

[jitspoe]

Just found a seagate 250GB for $70 ($.28/gig, but you can only get 1) after rebates at TigerDirect. Hmm, the forum won't let me include URLS, so you'll have to find it on their site. Sorry about that.

 

I'd reccomend Seagate over WD, personally. A couple friends of mine had their WD's die. Also, stay completely away from Maxtors. Those things drop like flies. Seagate has a 3 year warranty.

[BobbyDouglas]

The data I am backup up is something I could lose and not care about, since really is is a copy of something I already have.

 

I'd reccomend Seagate over WD, personally. A couple friends of mine had their WD's die.

- And a couple of my friends have had their Seagates die, but that doesn't mean WD is a better drive. What Seagate did you find? This one?

 

I mainly lean towards WD drives due to their very nice secure connect cables.