Death of Blue-Ray?

What does 500 GB cost in BD disks?

This isn't the only one, I found a 500 GB external hard drive on newegg awhile back but they took it down, it may have been a temporary deal. The only downside is that it does not have a power button. Other than that a solid drive so far, and roomy! external hard drives are going to get cheaper, with increased downloading and digital movies, its only a matter of time. I am currently trying to build a media center, and storage is a plus when you make one.

Not bad. I am actually working on a 2TB file server using raid 1. Would rather buy from newegg because of excellent return policy. Not sure of Buy.com, buy had purchased my thumb drive from them.

Now that Time Machine is compatible with any hard drive networked to an Airport Extreme, we think the deals will just keep getting better.

Call me crazy, but I suspect that more than half of these are selling to Windows users, so the impact of Time Machine might not be quite as profound as you think. Then again, maybe I am underestimating the number of Mac owners are out buying external hard drives now.

What does Time Machine have to do with the pricing of these? Oh, right, nothing. Thanks, Giz!

So basically gizmodo is saying that this is cheaper because of APPLE? It couldnt be all the windows users who also use them right?

@wizzledizzle: i got a 500 gig WD external from newegg about 2 weeks ago. i had to use a promo code that was $30 off but hey cant beat that deal! i would buy from newegg over buy.com in a HEARTBEAT! i am still waiting on a 4 gig flash drive i bought from them 2 months ago! they sold it to me and didnt have it in stock and still dont!!! anyway...unfortunately the promo code either expired or i just cant find it anymore. you can try and search google for newegg promo codes but i cant find it anymore. sorry. there are a ton of promo codes out there for newegg though. good luck!

Well I've got a WD Passport and if it's any indication of the quality and/or reliability of this, I think I'll pass.

@Catalyst: We can't be sure one way or another, but as I said in the post, Time Machine could have everything to do with it. Suddenly a whole group of computer users (i.e., novices) who have never considered an external HDD before suddenly see why they should. More entry level users switching to Mac, seeing backup software featured prominently for the first time, more reason for HDD manufacturers to sell to this market.

If this had esata, I'd be all over it, as an external drive for my DVR...

I got 2 lacie 500GB drives for $100 back in September. Yay dell days of deals!

Glad to see prices coming down.

To bad my HP mediasmart server is filled , guess i could always hook up to my popcorn hour , now that BD+ is cracked

So looking at the price for the 500GB time capsule and the price for airport extreme, it seems that going with 500GB is only $20 more than AE + this HD. Seems pretty good for an apple product.

Benny or could it be that wd just came out with more hds and need to get rid of stock.

[www.engadget.com]

see they just came out witha 2 platter 640gig hdd.

Why does everything have to be because of apple?

So many haters, so little time.

@YamIinLawSchool:

true. although this + airport extreme is arguably better because you can partition it.

@Out2gtcha: Weird. Our WD 120G external has been rock solid for almost two years of nearly constant use now. No complaints whatsoever...

@Benny Goldman: "a whole group of users"

Probably less than a quarter of all Mac users own an Airport Extreme. That's less than 1% of all computer owners.

I can't decide whether or not to be happy or sad by the fact that just 3 years ago I bought a no-name 80GB external USB hard drive for the same price. Ol' dude still runs like a champ, tho.

@Benny Goldman:
Oh. My. Gawd.

I'll have some of whatever you're smoking.

@phoomp: SO if there are 100 million computer owners in the U.S., there's now a million computer owners looking to shell out (using your logic).

Yeah, that's something I'd ignore as a manufacturer.

how bout an external hdd for my new PS3?

@matsayz: Not a bad idea.

I beat it, but only on on Black Friday. Exact same drive, 80 Bucks! AWESOME!! (Target by the way, picked it up at the store..no shipping)

I picked one of these up last black Friday from Target and its been great.

Actually, what I've noticed is that any time Apple refreshes one of its computer lines, RAM prices actually go up for a little while, because demand for it goes up. If Time Machine is having any effect, which I doubt it is, wouldn't it be to push prices up?

Just an FYI, the "Now that Time Machine is compatible with any hard drive networked to an Airport Extreme" is not true. It's still not officially supported by Apple at this time. And before someone but buts, show me where it says that update fixed that. It doesn't say that on Apple's site. So YMMV.

buy.com = scam - I'll never ATTEMPT to buy from them again.

@wizzledizzle:

Really Newegg's excellent return policy of 15% restocking. Are you kidding, I almost refuse to buy anything from Newegg based solely on this fact. I don't get the fascination with Newegg. Sure they usually ship things out quick, but so does almost every large company, plus they are not usually cheaper than other places. Yet they are really the only large online retailer (I looked at Buy.com, Amazon, Outpost/Frys, I know many more but just a quick look) that charges restocking.

USB bus powered drive probably not a good idea for backup. What is the speed of this drive? Typically they are 5400 RPM. Not great.

Looks like a lot of people have had bad experiences with buy.com. I know I did over 5 years ago, and I swore never to shop there again due to the total lack of customer service (they didn't even list a phone number at that time). Does anyone have recent experience with buy.com customer support?

Newegg had/has? the best return policy for flash memory cards. Even easier than maunfacterurs' lifetime warranty.

Of course, if I am not cheap I wouldn't buy those fragile A-Data SD cards.

@bobcubsfan:
Wrong. Most, if not all, are 7200RPM. You may wanna do research before making such comments.

These are probably cheaper because many if not most USB enclosures are IDE internally. (I know there are SATA ones)
IDE drives are getting really cheap because SATA is the current flavor for this stuff, although the internal 500GB SATA drives with less cache are dropping too.

My buddy just got a couple of 500GB drives from Dell for a hundred bucks each. Arrived yesterday as a matter of fact.

@liquidsoapdispenser: I've done purchases and returns with Buy.com over the last year with zero problems.
In fact they told me to keep what I thought was a defective Logitech G5 mouse and returned my money!
I later learned it was a PC-related problem and I still have the mouse.

I saw a 1TB external drive for ~$190 the other day, but it was a calvary drive so who knows about quality.

@lordargent: I picked up that Calvary drive. From what I read the drive itself is a WD drive repackaged by Calvary. Reviews were good, so if it's true it is better than this deal....

@lordargent: @akiddo: Those Calvary drives are just cheap knock-offs of Cavalry drives.

Just pray that they work...

"Now that Time Machine is compatible with any hard drive networked to an Airport Extreme, some of you might be interested in picking up something."

And then the other 95% of you "might be interested in picking up something" and using any version of over a dozen freeware backup programs out there.

You beat me to it. Well there's a Maxtor 250 for 70 bucks.

[ninjatales.wordpress.com]

@lianna_g: Word.

Also, I bought a Western Digital 500gb drive from a Dell sale almost a year ago for $105 shipped. I'm actually surprised prices have stagnated for this long.

I'm debating between Fantom, LaCie and Iomega 750gb to 1,000gb drives. Prices are $250 - $300, hopefully that will go down soon. The big draw for me will be FireWire 800 connections (for my upcoming new iMac purchase)

I have an older LaCie "Porsche" drive that's been giving me headaches lately; it's not really robust enough to run the computer 24/7, which is what I'm using it for lately, post G4 iMac hard drive death.

@newgalactic: Not quite... Hard drives didn't kill the CD or DVD. They suit different needs. I'd love to put all my movies on a Hard drive and play them via a computer on my TV, but most users won't. DVDs and BDs are just easier to deal with for most people still.

I may be the only one, but every Western Digital external drive i've ever used was slower than molasses in a Manitoba january. I don't know why, because the specs on their equipment seem competitive with every other manufacturer. Hope your results are better.