Welcome back to another edition of our famous weekly price guides. We're here this weekend to bring you the latest information regarding many storage options that are available, covering everything from SATA drives to SCSI to DVDRs. If this is your first time joining us in our price guides, we'll quickly introduce you to what they are all about.
Our RTPE lists many computer components, such as LCD monitors, hard drives, memory, CPUs, motherboards, sound cards, etc. So what we do is take four categories: storage (hard drives and optical drives), CPUs, motherboards and video cards; then we cover each topic about once a month. We not only like to make product recommendations based on prices and performance, but we also like to keep an eye out on the latest happenings in the marketplace and make informed suggestions for your next upgrade.
As per many requests from our loyal readers, we are still working on getting laptop hard drives into our RTPE. However, that task is not yet complete; rest assured that once it's ready, we will be sure to include that market segment in our storage price guides. We know many users also have a laptop or two, and some of them could use a hard drive upgrade/replacement.
We realize that the pricing tables on the following pages do not allow better sorting options like the RTPE does, as all of the tables are listed in alphabetical order. The main thing that you will find in the RTPE is the cost per GB breakdown, as well as the ability to sort by price. This makes finding the best storage deals extremely easy. Hopefully, we can get that functionality for our tables in the future, but for now, let's head on over to the 3.0Gbps SATA hard drives.
Our RTPE lists many computer components, such as LCD monitors, hard drives, memory, CPUs, motherboards, sound cards, etc. So what we do is take four categories: storage (hard drives and optical drives), CPUs, motherboards and video cards; then we cover each topic about once a month. We not only like to make product recommendations based on prices and performance, but we also like to keep an eye out on the latest happenings in the marketplace and make informed suggestions for your next upgrade.
As per many requests from our loyal readers, we are still working on getting laptop hard drives into our RTPE. However, that task is not yet complete; rest assured that once it's ready, we will be sure to include that market segment in our storage price guides. We know many users also have a laptop or two, and some of them could use a hard drive upgrade/replacement.
We realize that the pricing tables on the following pages do not allow better sorting options like the RTPE does, as all of the tables are listed in alphabetical order. The main thing that you will find in the RTPE is the cost per GB breakdown, as well as the ability to sort by price. This makes finding the best storage deals extremely easy. Hopefully, we can get that functionality for our tables in the future, but for now, let's head on over to the 3.0Gbps SATA hard drives.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
20 Comments
View All Comments
PrinceGaz - Tuesday, June 13, 2006 - link
I know not many of them are available yet, but I trust you will be adding them to future month's storage price articles.It might be worth including HD-DVD and BD readers as well until the burners come down to a reasonable price.
SignalPST - Monday, June 12, 2006 - link
Can SAS hard drives be used on onboard SATA2.0 ports such as the nForce4 motherboards?Or do SAS drives require a SAS PCI-E cards?
King Mongo - Monday, June 12, 2006 - link
I think the real deal for all large-size PATA and SATA drives is to be found at Outpost.com. They have consistently offered 500GB PATA & SATA drives for less than $200, with free shipping, for the past two weeks. NO REBATES. I believe the new standard for 500GB is $189For Seagate retail, Outpost.com *cannot* be beat.
For Maxtor & Western Digital, however, I would stay with the OEM resellers (like ZZF, eWiz, etc) because Maxtor & WD OEM drives come with a more robust warranty than the retail (for some reason).
SnoMunke - Monday, June 12, 2006 - link
First, you are missing the WD 5000YS (500GB) RE2 drive...Second, "While previously only Maxtor and Seagate were producing SAS drives, Hitachi has recently joined them with three offerings." is simply a B.S. statement. Hitachi SAS drives have been out for over 6 months!!! (I know because I bought one back in January and I b!tched at you before when you left the Hitachi SAS drives off Storage Price Guide!)
Third, you really need to clean up the presentation of your Storage Price Guide...it is simply not easy to read. How about dividing it up first by interface (which you have done) and then by HDD size (large, medium, small)? As others pointed out, SATA 1.5/3.0 HDDs should be lumped together.
Fourth, not to leave you too chastised from my harsh comments, I read Anandtech/DailyTech on a HOURLY basis. You all are doing a great job!
dhei - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
Like I have a mobo that supports 1.5sata, can i buy a 3.0 to "future proof" when i upgrade? Its the little things like that i always forget..hehJarredWalton - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
Yes, that's what we tried to explain on pages 2 and 3. There may be some exceptions out there on mobos, but if so I have yet to encounter them. (Note that I haven't tested any VIA/SiS chipset offerings in a long time, so I can't say for sure that they work. The spec is *supposed* to be backwards compatible, however.)regpfj - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
I gave up reading after the second page.
arswihart - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
Anandtech, what are you talking about in this whole article, its an outdated, and not-useful pile of rubbish if you ask me.JarredWalton - Sunday, June 11, 2006 - link
We're talking about hard drives. Outdated in what way? Not useful in what way? Specifics are helpful, and I find it hard to believe that two minor typos would turn this into rubbish. Do you simply not want us to do storage guides, or can you try to help by offering some suggestions for improvement? Simply posting flames on the internet does no one any good.If you're complaining about price differences (i.e. text doesn't coincide with the real-time charts), these prices change on a daily basis. If the text does not exactly reflect current prices 24 hours after being written, there's not much we can do to fix that.
Dfere - Monday, June 12, 2006 - link
Get Em, Jarred.Speaking for myself, I do not take this type of post seriously, and most of us do not... but fight the good fight, boy.!