Price Guides, March 2005: Storage

Serial ATA Hard Drives

The standard for choosing the best hard drive since the beginning has been to calculate the cost per gigabyte of the drive; what gives the most storage for the buck. Cache sizes and spin speed aside, most hard drives are created equally enough that 1GB of Brand A still equates to 1GB of Brand B. Just to get started, we compiled a short list of most of the serial ATA drives on the market today and their relative cost per GB.

Product	Size	Approximate Cost (Mar '05)	Cost Per GB
Hitachi U150 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Deskstar 7K250	250	$138.00	$0.55
Maxtor U150 250GB 7200RPM 8MB MaXLine Plus II	250	$138.00	$0.55
Western Digital U150 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Caviar SE	250	$139.00	$0.56
Western Digital U150 200GB 7200RPM 8MB Caviar SE	200	$114.00	$0.57
Hitachi U150 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Deskstar 7K250	160	$92.50	$0.58
Maxtor U150 200GB 7200RPM 8MB DiamondMax 10	200	$118.00	$0.59
Seagate U150 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Barracuda 7200.8	250	$149.00	$0.60
Western Digital U150 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Caviar RE	250	$150.00	$0.60
Maxtor U150 300GB 7200RPM 16MB DiamondMax 10	300	$185.00	$0.62
Maxtor U150 250GB 7200RPM 16MB DiamondMax 10	250	$156.00	$0.62
Maxtor U150 160GB 7200RPM 8MB DiamondMax Plus 9	160	$100.95	$0.63
Samsung U150 160GB 7200RPM 8MB SpinPoint P	160	$101.00	$0.63
Seagate U150 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Barracuda 7200.7	160	$102.94	$0.64
Hitachi U150 120GB 7200RPM 8MB Deskstar 7K250	120	$80.00	$0.67
Seagate U150 300GB 7200RPM 8MB Barracuda 7200.8	300	$205.71	$0.69
Western Digital U150 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Caviar RE	160	$110.00	$0.69
Maxtor U150 120GB 7200RPM 8MB DiamondMax Plus 9	120	$83.66	$0.70
Samsung U150 120GB 7200RPM 8MB SpinPoint P	120	$88.44	$0.74
Seagate U150 120GB 7200RPM 8MB Barracuda 7200.7	120	$89.99	$0.75
Hitachi U150 400GB 7200RPM 8MB Deskstar 7K250	400	$312.83	$0.78
Western Digital U150 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Caviar SE	80	$63.00	$0.79
Seagate U150 120GB 7200RPM 8MB Barracuda 7200.7	120	$96.00	$0.80
Seagate U150 400GB 8MB 7200RPM Barracuda 7200.8	400	$342.70	$0.86
Seagate U150 80GB 7200RPM 8MB Barracuda 7200.7	80	$68.75	$0.86
Maxtor U150 80GB 7200RPM 8MB DiamondMax Plus 9	80	$73.95	$0.92
Western Digital U150 74GB 10000RPM 8MB Raptor	74	$179.00	$2.42
Western Digital U150 36.7GB 10000RPM 8MB Raptor	36.7	$115.00	$3.13

Keep in mind, our price engine constantly updates the prices on products, but the table above reflects the cost per GB of products that we listed on March 5 th, 2005. The SATA market is particularly interesting because most of the products are based on Parallel ATA devices that debuted two years ago or relatively new unbridged solutions like in the example of the 7200.8 Seagate drives. Features like NCQ and RAID aside, the real advantage of going with SATA is the new technology; there are more current generation drives on the SATA interface than on PATA. Maxtor’s DiamondMax 10 and MaXLine II products really dominate the price per gigabyte this month, but MaXLine III (NCQ) SATA drives are still shy on availability. 250GB drives clearly mark the sweet spot for price per storage on SATA drives.

Maxtor’s DiamondMax 10 drives incorporate “fluid bearing motors”, which really isn’t that unique for a hard drive (as any physicist will tell you, air is technically a fluid), but these are relatively quiet drives. On the other hand, Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.8 series drives are certainly nothing to scoff at either, particularly considering the 5-year warranty. Since the 7200.8s are relatively new, their cost per GB is a little high still, which makes it tough to recommend them just yet. But for those of us with the “Deathstar” memories fresh in our heads, seeing a manufacturer commit to five years of service on a product is a welcomed change for the better, and paying a little extra for that kind of commitment doesn’t seem like a bad idea in the long run. Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.8 or Maxtor’s DiamondMax 10 still retain our top recommendation for 250GB SATA drives.



The 300GB and 400GB hard drives have made considerable progress in lowering the cost per gigabyte over the last few months, and probably the best example of that is Hitachi’s older 400GB Deskstar 7K250 [RTPE: HDS724040KLSA80]. Over the last six months, the cost of this particular drive has dropped $150, which just illustrates that there is some fire left in competitive hard drive pricing, and you can see our tracking history below.

Unfortunately, as dynamic the storage market is on some models, there are always two drives on which we can rely to never change in price: the tightly controlled Western Digital Raptors. If anything, prices on the 36.7GB Raptor [RTPE: WD360GD] have steadily increased over the last six months, putting the drive around the same price that it claimed two years ago at introduction. The 74GB edition [RTPE: WD740GD] stabilized six months ago and never looked back. You’ll notice the two severe spikes in our graphs where the RTPE bot picked up some rebates (for future reference, our Price Engine no longer lists rebates).

The heavily controlled 74GB Raptor sticks very close to its $180 MSRP, and unfortunately, without any serious 10,000 RPM SATA competitors on the market, that MSRP probably won’t change much in the near future.