If you’re like me you’re probably running out of hard drive space. Experts agree that running your system at full capacity will cause more data errors and could make your system crash more often. Since I’m within a few gigs of being completely full on all my hard drives I thought its time to buy a hard drive with more capacity. Installing an internal hard drive is actually pretty easy but if it’s not your thing there are always external hard drives. The external hard drives are very close in price to the internal counterparts. A few years ago external hard drives were more expensive so it’s nice to see them come down in price.
Before buying a new hard drive I do a quick check on cost per gig. After finding newegg.com they supply all of my hardware needs (their prices are good and shipping is wicked fast).
I was going to delete the prior prices from 2008 but I thought they provided some good information on how hard drive prices have changed. The best value hard drives have gone from .20 a Gig to .04 Cents a gig. The lower capacity hard drives have maintained their cost per gig of around .20 cents.
Internal Hard Drives (updated 8/11/2011)
These prices are from Newegg.com and reflect the lowest cost SATA hard drives for the various sizes.
Historical Comparison February 1st, 2008. Look how prices have changed!
Best Value Gigs 160 250 320 500 750 1000 Cost 56.13 69.99 79.99 99.99 154.99 271.99 Cost/Gig 0.35 0.28 0.25 0.20 0.21 0.27 The 500 gig hard drive is the best value closely followed by the 750gb drive. Surprisingly the 160gb drive is the most expensive. I almost bought the 160!
External Hard Drives
Gigs Cost Cost/Gig 40 59.99 1.50 60 53.49 0.89 80 64.99 0.81 120 65.99 0.55 160 59.99 0.37 200 67.99 0.34 250 83.33 0.33 320 79.99 0.25 400 107.80 0.27 500 107.80 0.22 750 168.99 0.23 1000 239.17 0.24 Again the 500gb wins for value. This list only includes those that require an extra power source. Out of curiousity I looked at the new USB hard drives that don’t require a seperate power supply. They averaged around a $1.00/gig.
Hopefully this helps in your hard drive shopping. It’s made me rethink the decision to buy an an internal 160 gb hard drive. The 500gb external is probably what I’ll get.
If you have any suggestions please leave a comment.
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