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500Gig HD Purchase-- Advice Wanted

OK, you do know this is a refurbished drive, right? With only 6 months warranty instead of 3 years?

Me I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole.

Also, I have experienced "geeks.com" level of customer service on items delivered DOA and it wasn't pretty.

<Disclaimer: My report of customer service is based on one purchase only - the first and last time I ever bought from them. Your experience may differ>
 
Not bad (if it's new, not refurb), especially with the USB enclosure. I personally don't buy WD hard drives anymore because they have a horrible, horrible track record with me, but that's a decent deal if you don't mind the brand. I picked up a Seagate 400GB drive a few months back from Outpost.com for $99 shipped; THAT was a good deal, especially since Seagate has a 5 year warranty.
 
mrogers said:
I picked up a Seagate 400GB drive a few months back from Outpost.com for $99 shipped; THAT was a good deal, especially since Seagate has a 5 year warranty.
Click to expand...

Just curious - have you run your Seagate serial number through Seagate to verify what warranty you have on that particular drive?

Not saying there's anything wrong with your Outpost deal, but the cheapest drives are usually reconditioned ('recertified') like the WD drive above, or they are OEMs or 'pulls' that don't come with the retail warranty, sometimes with no manufacturers' warranty at all.
 
Firewire is always better than USB 2.0 for drives, where you have the choice.

PowerPC machines will not boot from USB drives.

That Serial ATA drive at Frys is a good deal but will not fit in 99.99% of the USB cases out there. You would have to search for a case that supported SATA internal drives (more expensive) -- You are looking for an IDE (UltraATA) drive.
 
CanadaRAM said:
Just curious - have you run your Seagate serial number through Seagate to verify what warranty you have on that particular drive?

Not saying there's anything wrong with your Outpost deal, but the cheapest drives are usually reconditioned ('recertified') like the WD drive above, or they are OEMs or 'pulls' that don't come with the retail warranty, sometimes with no manufacturers' warranty at all.
Click to expand...

Thanks, but I'm well aware of that. I've been buying PC parts since a 40MB hard drive was $800...I don't need to run the serial through, because I always buy retail box drives. I get all brand new drives with full factory warranties. Outpost has fantastic deals on Seagate and Maxtor (my second favorite brand) retail box hard drives every month. Plus, usually free shipping. I recommend if you're looking for a good hard drive deal, pick up a Seagate from Outpost. Here's the one I have (actually I have two): http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4799749. It's not quite as cheap now, but still a good deal at $120 since it's 400GB, SATA-II (300), and 16MB cache, plus the 5 year warranty.

Out of the...I think about 35-40 hard drives I've owned or currently own over the last 6 years (since I started running a network file server), I've had only 1 Seagate fail, compared to 6 Western Digitals, 6 IBMs, and 2 Maxtors. That works out to roughly a 10% failure rate for Seagate, 40% failure for WD, 80% failure for IBM/Hitachi, and 20% failure for Maxtor. The Western Digitals all failed inside of three years except for one of them, and the IBMs all failed inside of two years. The one Seagate that died was just under 5 years when it failed -- and Seagate replaced it with a larger drive even though when I had bought that drive they hadn't started their 5 year warranty program yet. Gotta love Seagate!
 
i picked up a 500 gig mybook pro from buy.com has fw 800/400 and usb on it for 233. i thought it was quite a good deal
 
I saw this at ben's bargains this morning:

"NewEgg.com has the Seagate ST3500630AS 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Buffer SATA Hard Drive for $200 - $50 code EMC123500GBSGTE + $0 shipping = $150 shipped."

http://bensbargains.net/deal/18612/

Also, Zipzoomfly has the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3400620AS 400GB Serial ATA 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer for $133.

Personally, I would be hesitant to buy refurbed hard drives.
 
I've just bought a Seagate 400GB Barracuda USB2 External HD ST3400601U2-RK for £90 from Maplin in the UK. I'm just formatting and zero out right now...

Still waiting for it to finish...:rolleyes:

But other than that its quiet and non intrusive, but it is large though compared to my lacie mobile brick but that's understandable because its USB powered :D

I've heard WD My Book 500GB is a great buy.
 
Locatel said:
Get one of these, you'll not find a better price/benefit/built quality/warranty bundle.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/400+USB2/
Click to expand...

I agree that's a nice bundle, but I disagree that's the best price/benefit. It's still pricey. Looking at the 400GB for example, I can see that the cheapest one is $230...given that I got my 400GB Seagate retail for $99, with 5-year warranty, and you can get them now for $129 or less, you're paying over $100 just for an enclosure! There's great enclosures out there for $30-$50. If you can use a screwdriver, then you can buy your own drive and separate enclosure and usually save a lot of money that way.
 
mrogers said:
... you're paying over $100 just for an enclosure! There's great enclosures out there for $30-$50.
Click to expand...

It is a very nice enclosure. The Mercury Elites are very high quality. They are worth US$100. If you need a cheaper enclosure, the $30-$50 generic ones work well too.
 
mrogers said:
I agree that's a nice bundle, but I disagree that's the best price/benefit. It's still pricey. Looking at the 400GB for example, I can see that the cheapest one is $230...given that I got my 400GB Seagate retail for $99, with 5-year warranty, and you can get them now for $129 or less, you're paying over $100 just for an enclosure! There's great enclosures out there for $30-$50. If you can use a screwdriver, then you can buy your own drive and separate enclosure and usually save a lot of money that way.
Click to expand...

The 400GB unit is not a good example of cost/benefit since the cost per GB is almost 58 cents. The cost per GB on the 500GB unit drops to 50 cents/GB ($249.99). I don't think you'll find an enclosure as good as this one, with the same built and chipset quality, in the $30 to $50 range.

They use Seagate Barracudas 7200.10, have a 2 year warranty on the whole unit + 3 year warranty for the drive (total of 5 years). If you build something to match this, you'll not be saving that much, I don't think it's worth it.
 
My brother just bought a 500GB SATA drive for $20 less from Frys and it is new with full waranty. You do know that you can't boot a mac off USB. You need firewire.

I can't believe some one would consider this for a server Maybe if you bought four or six of these and built a RAID-5 system with them then you'd have some reliability.

But $125 at Frys was a better deal. Check out www.pricewatch.com too. Good deals there too if you pick the right vendor.
 
ChrisA said:
My brother just bought a 500GB SATA drive for $20 less from Frys and it is new with full waranty. You do know that you can't boot a mac off USB. You need firewire.

I can't believe some one would consider this for a server Maybe if you bought four or six of these and built a RAID-5 system with them then you'd have some reliability.

But $125 at Frys was a better deal. Check out www.pricewatch.com too. Good deals there too if you pick the right vendor.
Click to expand...

PPC Macs can only boot from FW. Intel Macs can boot from both USB and FW.
 
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