JIM HOLSONBACK wrote in a message to ROY J. TELLASON:

 JH> Hello, Roy.  Sorry, I've been pretty busy here, so haven't 
 JH> responded ill now.  Writing in haste, because it is late now.  I
 JH> overheard you talking with Tom Walker about - -

 -> I remember somebody making a comment in here a while back about the
 -> newer, bigger hard drives.  Something to the effect of considering a
 -> range of "a dollar a gig" being about right,  more or less.
 -> Unfortunately,  I can't remember who it was that posted that in
 -> here,  and there weren't any specifcis about where one might find
 -> such prices...

 JH> Yep, starting at about 60GB,  a buck a gig or less.  Bigger drives,
 JH> less per Gig.

 -> Anybody in here know where there are some good deals?  I need to
 -> radically expand my available storage space here.  :-)

 TW> Office Depot in my Area presently has a 40 gig Maxtor Retail Box
 TW> for $49.84 After Rebate.

 RJT> You're the second person to mention them.  I still need to scan the ads
 RJT> that came with Sunday's paper...

 JH> Unless you see something really stirs your grits, may as well wait
 JH> a few days until this weekend.

Yeah.

 TW> And I couldn't find the Ad but CompUSA(IF tyhey have one in your
 TW> Area)

 RJT> We don't,  but do they do mail-order?

 JH> Diff now from old-time mail-order.  Need to do the order online 
 JH> (www.compusa.com) , but I know at least some of these 
 JH> mass-retailers will let you order online and they will wait until 
 JH> you mail them a check. Some let you order online, then pick up and
 JH> pay at your local store. Some of the "best deals" with the 
 JH> mass-retailers are only at the stores, some are only online.  Mixed
 JH> bag.

Hmm.

 TW> has a good deal on a Western Digital 80 gig HD. $69.99 After
 TW> Rebate vas I recall. That one was an OEM package though.

 JH> Yep, that's par for course right now.  Sometimes those deals hinge
 JH> on a double rebate, as you had a "bad" experience with.  Maybe pay
 JH> $50 extra out the door, then a $20 and a $30 rebate from the store
 JH> and from the mfgr.

 RJT> What's that difference in packaging going to mean?  I don't recall it
 RJT> making much difference to me one way or the other before...

 JH> Retail pkg a la Maxtor has drive, booklet, 80 conductor IDE cable,

80?  Will that need something different at the other end?  I'm only looking
at the standard stuff on the MB here...

 JH> mounting brackets to put the pup in a 5 1/4" bay,

Those would maybe be handy to have.

 JH> a little bagful of screws, and software on diskette or CDROM disc 
 JH> to install the thing, transfer over files from old HDD to new, and 
 JH> etc.

Don't need much of that.

 JH> Old-style OEM is brown box, or even worse, bulk pack with just a 
 JH> bare drive sealed inside an anti-static bag.

That's the way I usually buy 'em.

 JH> For some of the better non-rebate pricing,  check out 
 JH> www.pricewatch.com

I haven't hit that one yet,  but did hit something similar.  The prices
were all over the place,  and it didn't look like they'd updated it that
recently in terms of purging older stuff -- some of the sizes were quite
"small" by today's standards.

 JH> These are "shipped" prices, so easy to compare with deals at 
 JH> stores.

The site I mention had a column for tax and shipping,  and when you'd punch
in your zip code they'd give you a "bottom line" price.

 JH> Some of the prices are only good for online orders.  Most of these 
 JH> sellers have 800 numbers posted there, but may cost more if you 
 JH> want to order over the phone.

Some vendors did,  some didn't.

 JH> Some of these sellers have websites.  sometimes the pricewatch 
 JH> price is "better" than the normal price at their regular website.  
 JH> Be sure what you're going to pay before you commit to an order.  
 JH> Many of these sellers don't charge any sales tax on orders from 
 JH> out of state.

They shouldn't,  unless they have a "point of presense" (legal
term) here in PA...

 JH> Another pretty good source is at www.techbargains.com They usually 
 JH> print on Fri or SAT a "heads-up" for upcoming weekend deals from 
 JH> the national mass-retailers.  These are sometimes among the very 
 JH> best prices, but almost invariably they involve rebates.

I'll have to look at that one,  too.

 JH> This should be a good weekend for such "specials" - - look for some
 JH> good ones,  for sale on Sun and MON due to the holiday.  If 
 JH> anything looks like a really good bargain price,  those are the
 JH> ones which usually sell out pretty early on Sunday, so then it is
 JH> good to have some advance notice via place like techbargains.com.

Sounds good.

 JH> That's all for now.
 JH> Good luck - - -  JimH.

ttyl

---