When 2TB 7200rpm drives cheaper?

[2ms]

I want a 2TB drive but they're nearly $300. Meanwhile, a 1TB Spinpoint F3 is like $90. Anyone have any guesstimates on when 2TB drives might be coming down more toward $200. Anyone know if any new models will be coming out anytime soon? Right now it seems like there's pretty much two $280 models on market and that's it -- most manufacturers don't even make one.

 

[daship]

How about you buy 2x 1TB and run raid 0, then you get the space and a huge performance increase over just 1 2TB drive.

 

[johng24601]

I've purchased 2 TB 7200 rpm Hitachi drives for as little as $140. NewEgg has them for $150 right now.

 

[sminlal]

I just (yesterday) ordered a 2TB WD EADS Green drive for CDN$160 at NCIX. I'm sure if you look around you can find something for less than $300, unless you're trying to buy one of the RAID-Ready drives.

 

[2ms]

The Hitachi ones are great, I sorta forgot about them when wrote post, however I cannot use them because they are too hot for my application. They run 10 degrees hotter than 2TB drives with fewer platters (ie modern platter density). I do need 2TB drives rather than 1TB though.

Are there no signs of any manufacturer releasing any new 7200rpm 2TB drives? The Green drive isn't 7200rpm. I really need the lower access time of 7200rpm. The Hitachi is too hot and the Seagate and WD are too expensive. Once some competition arrives I assume prices will come down across the board. No signs of anything new on horizon though?

 

[Starges]

How about you buy 2x 1TB and run raid 0, then you get the space and a huge performance increase over just 1 2TB drive.

I wouldn't recommend Raid 0 for 2x 1Tb drives. Remember that if one fails, the other one becomes useless.

Preferably raid 1

 

[jsc]

Even BestBuy has 2 TB WD Greens for $200.

 

[2ms]

They aren't 7200rpm so they have much slower access times.

 

[2ms]

I understand what you are saying but it's not an option for me in this particular case. I need a 2TB 7200 rpm drive.

 

[sub mesa]

You want the impossible:
- 2TB but you don't want to pay for it
- low power consumption, yet you insist on having 7200rpm
- single drive, so performance doesn't seem to be very important

What will you be doing with the drive? Why is a RAID0 array no solution for you? Why are green drives no solution?

There are choices to be made. There is no single disk that's best at power consumption, performance, price and heat production. So you have to make a choice somewhere.

 

[2ms]

I guess I'll just have to wait blindly another 6 months or so until there's more competition in the segment and prices have come down more/when everyone's on 500GB/platter. Hard to imagine there not being something from Samsung, for example, by then. Which there was as much advance information on the timing of these things as there is in other segments (for example CPU roadmaps).

 

[sub mesa]

Generally you should not go beyond 3 platters; it will get hot, expensive and may be less reliable or durable.

Right now the 3,5" disks are on 500GB-per-platter capacity; so that makes 1.5TB drives the sweet spot. As soon as 666GB (i gotha love that number) platters are out, that means you can create 3-platter 2TB disks; that's where the prices and heat/power consumption of these 2TB disks will start to fall.

So for now, 2TB are bloated disks. The Hitachi even went as far to create a 5-platter (200GB per platter) monster drive just to be the first manufacturer that releases a 2TB disk. Certainly i wouldn't buy it.