[Thump553]

A quick heads up-according to the Hot Deals thread linked below, about 3/4 of the people who have gotten this got a newer model hard drive (7200.10 instead of 7200.09) inside the box.  The newer model has perpendicular recording, which (I guess) is the latest rage.  Unfortunately, when those people checked their warranty on the actual drive (versus the shipping box) Seagate's site is reporting NO warranty as opposed to the promised five year warranty.   Apparently if you contact Seagate now and furnish them proof they will honor the five year warranty. 

Here's the link:  http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=40&threadid=1943526&frmKeyword=&STARTPAGE=1&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear

BTW, for those of us who were waiting, I think the deal is over now, but it has been coming up a lot recently.

[Paul_Bui]

Too bad my pc only has SATA interface.

George

Those HDs on sale are SATA.  I bought them and at first didn't know what to do, as my PC is all IDE.  I then learned a bit more, bought a PCI SATA card, and now I have installed two SATA HDs in my PC, a total of 700GB free fast storage waiting for more music and other digital stuff.  Thanks guys for sharing the news.

[miklorsmith]

I got one of these and e-mailed Seagate about it.  They said it's an OEM deal to Fry's and that the 5-year warrantee is to Fry's.  Here's the text of the message:

Dear Mike,

Thank you for contacting Seagate Warranty Support.With regards to your request,
the product with the serial number 3QH019KY and part number 9BJ044-300 was sold
as a system component.

Seagate sells many drives to direct OEM (Original Engineering Manufacturer)
customers.  These products are usually configured for the OEMs only, as
components for their systems.

The warranty for your product serial number is only applicable to the buyer who
purchased the unit directly from Seagate for the stated warranty period. Please
contact your POP (place of purchase) for further warranty assistance.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

As a side note, I got this drive with a compatible external case, planning to connect to my computer via USB.  The Device Manager shows it's connected and working, but it doesn't show up as a drive.  Also, when the new drive is connected and powered on, the computer won't get all the way through startup and it won't power down.  There are other oddities.  As soon as I power the drive off, the computer resumes normal operation.

Odd.

[Thump553]

Mike:  Yours came in a retail box, right?  And on the box it clearly says five year warranty.  I'd hang onto everything and hold Seagate's feet to the fire, if need be.  For more info look to the Hot Deals thread I linked a few posts below. 

Seagate shouldn't be able to weasle out of their warranty by switching parts on the customer.  If nothing else, I'd keep my keeps open for the inevitable class action suit that will be brought. 

[Rob Babcock]

I've been drooling over the new 750 GB perpendicular drives.  Right now BB has 'em for $400, which is pretty close to what it costs @ Newegg.  Ideally I'd have two of them, one in the PC & one in an external enclosure to back up the 1st one.  The idea would be to use FLAC to rip all my CDs onto one drive, then add a SB3.

[miklorsmith]

That's essentially what I'm doing.  I've got .flac files in the computer for streaming and .wav files in the external drive.  .wav is nice too because you can easily convert it to any other format, and making CD copies for my travel case is a piece of cake.

You're money ahead doing 2 - 400 gig external drives vs. a single 750 gig drive.  I have a 200 gb drive I bought about 3 years ago that was more expensive than the 400 gb version I just bought with this smokin' deal.

[Thump553]

Rob:  You'd be surprised how far the hard drives go.  I have 910 albums (probably 100 are partial albums) on a 120 GB external and a 180 GB internal, and still have 60 GB spare.  If you keep video your hard drive space will disappear rapidly, but even flac files aren't that cumbersome.  I think access speed is pretty irrelevant for our music uses also.  Temperature is important, and noise can be (depending on where your computer is located).

Hard drives still seem to be a component where the most consistent factor is what cost $400 last year is now $100.  I've taken to going cheap but buying maybe 200% of the storage capacity I figure I'll need in the next year or so.

I'm betting there will some excellent hard drive deals coming up in the after-Thanksgiving sales.

[Rob Babcock]

You're money ahead doing 2 - 400 gig external drives vs. a single 750 gig drive.  I have a 200 gb drive I bought about 3 years ago that was more expensive than the 400 gb version I just bought with this smokin' deal.

I thought the problem was that the SB won't recognize it unless the file is all in one folder, hence all on one drive?  Obviously it would be a lot cheaper to go with a couple of 400 GB drives (which I have, actually).

I was just doing cocktail-napkin-math.  If an "average" length CD is about 450 MB (hard to say- I have older CDs that are 35 minutes and newer ones that push 78 minutes), then it would 'FLAC' down to about 225, right?  I was trying to err on the side of having extra room, especially since I don't plan to quit buying new stuff!

[miklorsmith]

I have a couple of 250 gb drives linked in my desktop.  I have about 300 albums of .flac files and the total now is a little less than 200 gigs.  However Dell configured the simple RAID between the two, it's invisible to the SB.

Your math is reasonable.  I hadn't thought about the 'one drive' streaming issue, as capacity hasn't been a thought in my streaming context.  I was thinking more about .wav backups, which actually has been a consideration for me in the past.

Even if you manage to fill up a 400 gb drive with .flac files, this will take a long time if you're burning the discs yourself.  You'll have time to think about the next step.   

[dwk]

I was just doing cocktail-napkin-math.  If an "average" length CD is about 450 MB (hard to say- I have older CDs that are 35 minutes and newer ones that push 78 minutes), then it would 'FLAC' down to about 225, right?  I was trying to err on the side of having extra room, especially since I don't plan to quit buying new stuff!

I'm seeing about 300 MB per album with FLAC so far on what is probably a 'representative slice' of my collection.  I guesstimate 3 cd's per gig when thinking about capacity, which is a nice easy number.

[zybar]

I have a couple of 250 gb drives linked in my desktop.  I have about 300 albums of .flac files and the total now is a little less than 200 gigs.  However Dell configured the simple RAID between the two, it's invisible to the SB.

Your math is reasonable.  I hadn't thought about the 'one drive' streaming issue, as capacity hasn't been a thought in my streaming context.  I was thinking more about .wav backups, which actually has been a consideration for me in the past.

Even if you manage to fill up a 400 gb drive with .flac files, this will take a long time if you're burning the discs yourself.  You'll have time to think about the next step.   

I am beyond two 400GB drives with just FLAC files.   

And yes, it took a long time to get there.   aa

George

[mgalusha]

I thought the problem was that the SB won't recognize it unless the file is all in one folder, hence all on one drive?  Obviously it would be a lot cheaper to go with a couple of 400 GB drives (which I have, actually).

Rob,

SlimServer doesn't support multiple parent directories but you can put a shortcut to the additional drives in the primary. Mine has a folder on C: called music and all it contains are two short cuts, one labeled A_L and the other M_Z. You can use as many as you need.

Mike