[Tirade]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7783552&type=product&id=1142290230595&ref=06&loc=01

Best Buy has em for $199 shipped +tax

OPTIONAL

I called Staples and had them price match Best Buy taking my total to roughly $191 (110% price match) +tax and then I used a $30 off $150 coupon that I picked up off Ebay for $1

My total was roughly $175 shipped for a 500Gb External USB HD

Edit: There is also a 12% Best Buy coupon floating around thats good through this weekend and that would get your roughly the same price w/o having to do the price match.

[JohninCR]

That is a nice price.  I'm trying to hold out for the drives quoted as TB's
instead of GB's.  From what I've read the new technology of stainless steel
foil will easily get us there with higher data density and higher RPM.  It's
going to be faster than flash memory.  I think twin 1TB drives will hold me
over until they get to 5TB.

[95bcwh]

one thing I hate about Western Digital is, they always cheat! They say the drive is 500GB but when you start it up you only see 460GB, likewise for all other drives they sell.

[Tirade]

one thing I hate about Western Digital is, they always cheat! They say the drive is 500GB but when you start it up you only see 460GB, likewise for all other drives they sell.

Ive yet to find a drive company that doesnt do this.

In fact I would say that the majority of HD manufacturers advertise their hard drives as 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes instead of the true forumla of 1 MB = 1,048,576 bytes

[95bcwh]

One of the drive I bought from Seagate delivers on promise, it advertised as 250GB and there is indeed 250GB.

one thing I hate about Western Digital is, they always cheat! They say the drive is 500GB but when you start it up you only see 460GB, likewise for all other drives they sell.

Ive yet to find a drive company that doesnt do this.

In fact I would say that the majority of HD manufacturers advertise their hard drives as 1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes instead of the true forumla of 1 MB = 1,048,576 bytes

[JEaton]

That is a nice price.  I'm trying to hold out for the drives quoted as TB's
instead of GB's.  From what I've read the new technology of stainless steel
foil will easily get us there with higher data density and higher RPM.  It's
going to be faster than flash memory.  I think twin 1TB drives will hold me
over until they get to 5TB.

You're going to be waiting a while, then.  And you're going to pay a ridiculous price per GB.  There's always a sweet spot in $/GB and it's never at the high end of drive capacities.

[jqp]

You should be able to get 250GB USB drives for $89 I did in June, then it was with a rebate, but now w/o.

[Rob Babcock]

One of the drive I bought from Seagate delivers on promise, it advertised as 250GB and there is indeed 250GB.

Strange...I've got more than half a dozen Seagates and none give me the "full amount."  I've never seen that with a drive- formatting always loses a few gigs, at least IME.

[JohninCR]

That is a nice price.  I'm trying to hold out for the drives quoted as TB's
instead of GB's.  From what I've read the new technology of stainless steel
foil will easily get us there with higher data density and higher RPM.  It's
going to be faster than flash memory.  I think twin 1TB drives will hold me
over until they get to 5TB.

You're going to be waiting a while, then.  And you're going to pay a ridiculous price per GB.  There's always a sweet spot in $/GB and it's never at the high end of drive capacities.

You got me confused with someone else, because I left out "in the $100-$150 price range". Every
2-3 years I upgrade with the most I can get in that "sweet spot" you mentioned, because I don't
trust the newest biggest.  Knock on wood, but my approach must be working, with 10+ years of all
day every day PC use, bargain but reasonably powerful systems, and not a single crashed drive.
I'm feeling a bit constrained with the 300G total I currently have, but I don't really want to step up
to just 1T total right now, although for around $200 it's pretty tempting.  I'd rather jump right to
"more than I'll ever need"....yeah right!