I personally don't trust MiR's and feel that they are a sales gimmick
where you *might* get it or it might get "lost in the mail."
As for prices falling on drives: I'm not surprised with 500GB as
evevery manufacturer has at least 3 models in that capacity and it has
become the "commodity" drive of choice these days. But so long as 1TB
is the top end and there's no compelling reason for prices on those to
fall dramatically, even if 500GB units fall to $65 each, a 1TB drive
will still be around $160.
Its only been recently that 320/platter has been accomplished and I
feel that until 500 or 640GB/platter is achieved that there won't be a
HDD >1TB anytime soon. Right now going larger means more platters
which results in a hotter, noisier, less reliable drive mostly
mitigaged by the redundant technologies at the enterpreise level these
top-end drives are intended for. When densities start reaching 500GB
- 640GB per platter (2010 maybe?) we'll see 1TB drives in the $120
range, the new race being 1TB/platter.
SSD is slowly coming into its own and will eventually break into mass
market consumption. To stay competitive platter-based solutions will
have to be cheap, fast, good, quiet, green and reliable moreso than
they are today. By the time 500GB SSD's are $80 our 500GB platter
HDD's will have been long retired. Good times ahead. :)
On May 10, 11:26=A0am, Buy-Sell <DCot...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> $80 is a pretty average sale price for a 500GB Drive nowadays. =A0I've
> seen Seagate, Hitachi, and WD go for $80 for 500GB (no mail in rebate)
>
> I've also seen a Hitachi for $100 after $20 mail in rebate.
>
> I figure 1TB drives will be ~$100 by end of Q3/early Q4. =A0I figure
> 1.5TB drives or 2TB drives will be out around then too (for a premium,
> of course).
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