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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1730
Price Guides, July 2005: Storage
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Manveer Wasson on July 10, 2005 7:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Introduction
As always, we have more developments for those of you who have tried our RTPE beta. Just this last week we added some changes to the search engine that should allow for better searching (i.e. if you type DDR500 it will match PC-4000). Also, we added a feature that allows you to view the cost per GB on memory and hard drives. Just search for any memory or storage component and the engine will calculate the details for you! Feel free to talk about this new feature in our forums here. We also began moving the WML/WAP search on RTPE from closed beta to open beta, so all of those with data plans on your cell phone can now give the WAP search a try! Feel free to check out more details and leave your comments in our forums. Finally, we apologize for the outage of the RSS feed late last week; we had to upgrade FreeBSD on the RTPE master node.
Is the storage market over saturated? Optical storage drives cost $40 for top of the line, PATA cost per GB is below $0.40 and SATA cost per GB is below $0.50. Compare this to just a year ago where a decent DVD burner cost $150 (and didn't even support dual layer), SATA drives were a steal at $1.20 per GB and PATA drives were the cost per GB champions at $0.80 per GB. For now, this benefits us the consumers. In the long run, however, having five or six large competitors might lead to resurgence in low quality components in order to keep margins the same while reducing cost; similar to what happened several years ago. Does anyone remember when hard drives went from 5 year warranties to 1 year warranties? Let's hope DeathStar days aren't ahead of us.
SATA IO
Two weeks ago we had the opportunity to look at some "SATA II" drives from Samsung. Although this was supposed to be a big deal for hard drives, confusion in the SATA IO organization has convoluted the significance of SATA II. In fact, you may wish to read up on our previous article detailing the fact that "SATA IO" hard drives (SATA II is the old name, SATA IO is the new one) do not have to support NCQ, 3Gbps transfers or Hot Plug. The argument still rages as to whether or not 3Gbps is even useful on the desktop since the IO bottleneck is on the drive itself rather than the SATA bus, which almost makes everything about "SATA II" pointless anyway without NCQ. Purav's tests seem to favor NCQ for certain manufacturers and not others, so even the previous statement might be slightly misleading. While we were anxious about SATA IO in the past, the only real reason we see to get excited about it is if the cost per GB ratio gets below other SATA NCQ offerings.
The newest edition to the SATA IO lineup is Western Digital. Western Digital quietly unveiled their newest drive, the WD2500KS [RTPE: WD2500KS] without much fan fare. The WD2500KS is one of those prime instances where the "SATA II" market has really failed to inform its customers; the WD2500KS supports 3.0Gbps transfers, but does not incorporate NCQ. At least the cost is coming down fast:
Western Digital SATA II 250GB 7200RPM 16MB Caviar SE16
Our best advice is to really investigate which drives do better with NCQ and base your purchasing decision on that. As some of our benchmarks demonstrate, three of the new SATA IO drives occasionally did better without NCQ. Western Digital's hedge on NCQ-disabled drives might actually prove a wise decision in the long run. Until then, don't spend the premium on SATA IO.
SATA
PATA's grip on the cost per GB is slowly slipping; drives like the Maxtor 200GB DiamondMax 10 [RTPE: 6B200M0] are bringing the price of a good SATA drive down to $0.50 per GB; although you'll have to spend a tad more for NCQ still. Check out how the 6B200M0 has preformed over the last few months:
Maxtor SATA 200GB 7200RPM 8MB DiamondMax 10
As SATA drives get bigger, they also produce better cost per GB ratios. Western Digital's 250GB Caviar SE [RTPE: WD2500JD] manages to come in at $0.44 per GB! The new Western Digital 320GB Caviar SE [RTPE: WD3200JD] ends up being about $0.48 without mail in rebates, although anyone who visits our Hot Deals Forum should know you can find more hard drive mail in rebates than you can shake a stick at.
SATA drives start to break into those magic low cost per GB ratios around the $200 mark. If you're interested in seeing the exact cost per GB, check RTPE here. Another drive that has lead the drop in cost per GB on our SATA drives is the Seagate SATA 250GB 7200.8 [RTPE: ST3250823AS] The 7200.8 isn't the cheapest 250GB drive right now, but if you click on the RTPE link and scroll down, you'll see the cost per GB is still very competitive. We have been watching this drive very closely, and again this drive takes our pick as the SATA II all around drive.
![](http://labs.anandtech.com/img/plot/1258_182.png)
Seagate SATA 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Barracuda 7200.8
The cost of Western Digital Raptors [RTPE: Raptor] is still the same as they were a year ago. However for the first time we are starting to see some decent rebates show up, including a $20 mail in rebate for the 74GB Raptor. Check RTPE for a detailed list of rebates on each of the drives. We have heard some talk about a SATA IO "Raptor" with native NCQ instead of TCQ on the existing Raptors. Western Digital has not been a large opponent of NCQ, and since NCQ implementation seems very subjective per manufacturer, we are very anxious to see if the final product will live up to WD's reputation. Expect more details by the time we unleash our next price guide!
PATA
Even though SATA has some really nice deals going on, and their cost per GB is steadily decreasing, PATA just won't die. The new Seagate 7200.8 drives came out of left field over the last few weeks and dropped the cost per GB almost $0.10 since our last guide to $0.39! Just take a look at the historical trend for the Seagate 250GB 7200.8 [RTPE: ST3250823A].
Seagate ATA100 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Barracuda 7200.8
PATA keeps clinging to life, but mostly because none of the hard drive manufacturers are willing to let it go. Obviously if Samsung or Maxtor pull out of the PATA market, Western Digital, Seagate and Hitachi will just continue to manufacturer drives and snap up the abandoned market share. In several years all of these manufacturers will probably regret having the excess inventory on their hands, but as long as motherboard manufacturers continue to pump out boards with legacy components no one need worry.
Western Digital has another $30 mail in rebate for their 300GB Caviar SE [RTPE: WD3000JB], so if you like to live life on the edge a bit you may wish to check that deal out.
Even though the PATA market isn't dying, it is running out of 5400RPM drives; the cost ratio on MaXLine II drives continues to rise in favor of the MaXLine Plus II (7200RPM MaXLine II) and MaXLine III drives. As seek speed is penalized proportionally to the size of the drive and the RPM, we couldn't be happier that the better performing 7200RPM drives are taking the lead.
Although 400GB drives have been on the move, 200GB to 320GB drives have dropped faster, thus penalizing the cost per GB for anyone who really doesn't need the density of the large drives. We have listed the 400GB drives below, but don't jump on these unless you absolutely need to have 2TB in your PC.
Unfortunately there isn't much else to report about PATA drives. Just keep watching the cost per GB plummet.
SCSI
Generally there aren't too many exciting SCSI announcements, but it looks like July will be an exception. Serial Attached SCSI controllers have been around since fall of last year, but it looks like SAS drives are finally ready to show up in the retail channel. You may recall the SCSI Trade Organization's roadmap outlining 3Gb/s SAS drives over a year ago, but as we know in the computer world, paper launches and 6 month delays are all too common. It looks like Maxtor and Seagate will be the first manufacturers to launch into the retail channel with Fujitsu close behind. Realistically expect two to three weeks before they show up in major retail channels. As always, expect more SAS coverage from us as retail drives start to show up.
Searching through our SCSI inventory for SCSI 15000RPM drives [RTPE: ultra320 15000RPM] yields a bunch of hard drives that haven't changed in price since May. Unfortunately, there just aren't any really killer deals around for SCSI hard drives in the 15000RPM range. On the other hand, 10000RPM drives are actually a little more volatile. Prices on Maxtor Atlas IV drives have been below the $3 per GB mark for a few months, but it looks like the Atlas V drives are also about to cross that threshold. Seagate 10K.7 have also made some impressive drops in the last few weeks but SCSI hasn't quite made the leap into a price per GB that can compare to a pair of Raptors. Check out how Seagate's 10K.7 73GB SCSI drive [RTPE: ST373207LC] has fared recently.
Seagate Ultra320 73GB 10000RPM 8MB Cheetah 10K.7 80-pin
Certainly impressive, but it looks like we might have to wait for SAS before we see some really big moves in the SCSI market.
Optical Storage
NEC makes things so easy for people like me. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the best DVD burner these days; NEC's 3540A [RTPE: ND-3540A] is not only the cheapest drive available, but it's also one of the most feature packed and fastest. Prices on the similar performing Pioneer DVR-109 [RTPE: DVR-109] are also adjusting, but the ND-3540 is still the leader. The 8X DVD+DL burn speeds alone should be worth the upgrade since good Verbatim media will generally burn faster than what it's rated at anyway. Check out how the NEC 3520A and the NEC 3540A have priced against each other over the last few months:
NEC 16X ND-3540A
NEC 16X ND-3520A
However, if you really want to burn DVD-RAM then you only have one viable option; the LG GSA-4163B [RTPE: LG GSA-4163B]. There is a $10 premium on the LG drive right now, but we expect to see NEC's ND-4550A drive in the near future which will have all the features of the ND-3540A but will also support 16X DVD-RAM write speeds and Lightscribe. NEC's next generation dual format burner is also slated to support LightScribe and should debut at the same time as the ND-4550A. We will keep you posted!
We have an upcoming 16X DVDR roundup this week, and you may be surprised to see NEC has some competition from BenQ. Stay tuned next week for more recommendations and hot deals!