Who sells the best internal storage? I’m looking for a nice-sized (at least 100-120GB, no less than about 60GB) moderately-priced (in the neighborhood of $100-$200) hard drive to be a slave drive for my current desktop. I’m interested in an ATA drive, because that’s what my current one is, but if I can be persuaded such distinctions aren’t important I’m flexible.
I want the basic things: Value (best storage/cost ratio), reliability (not going to crap out), and seller reliability (not a fly-by-night). I’m currently looking at the Seagate Barracuda V (even though noise isn’t a criterion here), just to give you a point of reference.
Froogle is helpful, but too helpful. I’m deluged with options and I need Dopers to help me sort through them.
If you don’t mind ordering over the internet, I’d suggest you get a hard drive from Newegg. A few of them are out of stock as of now, but all are within your stated price range, especially with that free shipping newegg appears to be offering.
At 120 GB you’re getting pretty good value. As for reliability, I’ve heard a few bad things about IBM’s Deskstar line crapping out after a certain amount of time (my 60 gig Deskstar has yet to do so, thankfully). Perhaps that problem has been fixed by now. If I had to pick one of those hard drives off of the page I linked to, I’d go with the Western Digital “Special Edition.”
Regarding seller reliability, I got almost all of the components I used to build my computer from Newegg. Quick and easy, shipped promptly, good experience all around.
I like tcwo.com or you might try computergeeks.com first. They sell refurb and overstock, so they might not have the size you want. I just installed an 80GB I bought from there. It was $86 after shipping.
I just checked computergeeks.com. They have a 120GB for $149 and a 200GB :o for $329, both new (not refurbed).
Try http://www.pricewatch.com , which lets you search for the best prices among many reputable shippers. I’ve ordered from businesses that advertise on Pricewatch dozens of times and never been ripped off.
Searching for hard drives, I see a 120GB 7200RPM Maxtor for $133, including shipping. The cheapest 120GB drive there is $122, a 5400RPM drive, but the extra RPMs are more than worth the extra $11.
If we’re making on-line store recommendations, I’d like to commend MultiWave. They have excellent service, both pre and post sale, a very easy return policy (I had a defective card a while back, no problems exchanging it) and very, very good prices. I just picked up a passel of parts (barebones, HD, monitor, printer, CDRW…) and compared prices and found the bundle well below most others and within a few dollars of a couple other places. Since I’ve been there before it was worth the ten or so bucks to go with a trusted source.
Of course, YMMV, but they have a loyal customer in me.