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

 JH> Hello, Roy.

 JH> Best HDD deal from the mass-retailers (rebates) in paper here 
 JH> yesterday was 120GB Maxtor for $60 AR from CompUSA.  $100 plus tax
 JH> out the door, and $40 mfgr's mail-in rebates.

I didn't see anything from them,  not having one of those around here,  but
there was one place (though now I forget which one) that was offering a
price of $99 on a 160G drive,  only you had to pay $159.95 to walk out the
door with it.  Other stuff wasn't as attractive.

 JH> Others had pretty much the standard prices which have been being 
 JH> offered. - - 80GB for $70 AR,  120GB for $80 AR, and 160GB for 
 JH> $100 AR.

For those kinds of pricing I might as well go with the biggest one.  :-)

 JH> Best prices at www.pricewatch.com (no rebates, shipping included)
 JH> are 40GB for $48,  60GB for $54, 80GB for $62, 120GB for $84, and
 JH> 160GB for $110.

That's not bad,  particularly if you don't have to play the rebate game! 
That 160G unit I mentioned above involved two of them,  both mail-in...

Since I only did that once (back at the end of winter) involving a cd
burner and some discs,  and since I'm still waiting on the rebate for the
smaller of the two,  I think I'd hesitate before doing that again, 
particularly for more money than before.

 JH> In addition to the already-mentioned 7200 vs 5400 rpm possible heat
 JH> problem - Mfgrs have generally no gone to only a 1-year warranty, 
 JH> whereas about this time last year, the std was 3-years.

I've seen that mentioned before.  I guess running it 24/7 should cook it
pretty good,  though I have had the bad luck of having stuff fail on me
right after the warranty ran out.  That was the only monitor I ever bought
brand new,  too.  Some kind of power supply failure that was actually
smoking traces on the board.  And of course the place I bought it is gone, 
too.  Of the rest of what I have here,  hard drives and MBs (in one or two
cases) and things like modems get bought new,  sometimes.  I have
accumulated a few used HDs too,  and they seem to be holding up equally
well.

About the only failure I had in here lately was during the Florida trip, 
when I got back the one SCSI drive I had in the system here was toast. 
We'd closed up the room and it does just get too hot in here.  Next time
I'll be sure to have fans blowing on stuff,  at least...

 JH> Newest EIDE drives generally have 8MB cache on them vs, 2MB about 
 JH> this time last year. 

I did notice that in some of the ads.  I wonder if the controller hardware
on them is smart enough to do stuff in a sequence that makes sense given
the mechanical constraints?  Seeking in order,  etc...

 JH> Newest drives probably support UDMA/EIDE 133, vs 100 maybe a year 
 JH> ago.

I don't know how much of an issue that's going to be with me considering
most of the hardware I'm using here.

 JH> Very newest mainboards now support something even faster - Serial
 JH> ATA (SATA), and drives which support that cost a bit more.  BIR I
 JH> saw a 120GB SATA drive in yesterday's paper for $120 AR.

I think this is probably the first I've heard of this one.  Why is it
supposed to be better?

 JH> ... Jim, why does everything these days have to be so danged
 JH> complicated?-Bubba 

Anyway!

I think they're all just trying to keep us confused...   :-)

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