In previous posts over the last six months of so I have confidently stated that the current best price per gig ratio seems to be on 750 Gig drives.

I used to pop up "calc" and manually crunch the numbers. But why waste finger dexterity, brain power, pencil led, and time, when I can throw several gigaherz of computing power at the problem.

I have a spreadsheet that grabs hard drive makes, models, descriptions, and prices from my local supplier's website. It has to parce the size out of the description text, using a nightmarish nested IF formula, but it works. It then calculates the price per gig, and highlights/colours the lowest priced drives, as well as the lowest $/Gig. It also marks any drives within 10% of that lowest price with a different colour. And just in case I'm stupid and colour blind that day, or printing in black and white, the best deals have ***** in the column after the price.

I ran that tonight and found something interesting. My previous 750 gig answer doesn't apply at the moment. They must be trying to clear out 500 gig drives because they have the best price per gig right now.

Another interesting discovery, in classic supply/demand economics, PATA/IDE drives are becoming more scarce, and hence their prices are rising. (Yes, some of guys with older SD systems still use that ancient technology.) For example 500 gig SATA works out to $0.1999 per gig, vs PATA 500 gig at $0.2399. The PATA is only 1/100th of a penny per gig, less than a SATA one Terabyte drive.

Of course trade offs between size needs, power usage, heat, sound level, etc, might override a $/gig decision for you.

I guess the moral of the story do the math rather than assuming your previous calculation still applies. The second moral -- if you still need a PATA drive, grab em now because the prices are going up.

Maxtor 500GB PATA $79.99 @ Frys.com

Found it on Fatwallet.com

You might be talking USD vs. CAD.

There's a difference?

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It depends on the day. Vagaries of the stock market, the latest sub-prime mortgage writedown, unrest somewhere in the world, an oil refinery fire, weather, or how some Wall Street tycoon felt when he rolled out of bed this morning, all seem to play into the price.

For the last several months the Canadian/US exchange rate has been within two cents either side of "at par." Today for example it's $1 US = $1.0039 CDN (meaning the Canuck Buck worth slightly less than the US). Though last November the Loonie soared to $1.10 above the Greenback.

As to the hard drive prices, certainly the supply chain in Canada is much shorter than in the US. There just isn't as much product sitting in warehouses. The fluctuating exchange rate has something to do with that.

Also we don't have the large volume chain retailers like Fries with it's 35 stores. My supplier (Memory Express) has five outlets. The choice/price might be better in the multi-million population bases of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

And ordering off the web? The shipping cost always makes it exceed the locally bought price.

[Ooops - sorry, out of control - /Rant On]
And don't even get me started on US retailers who refuse to sell to Canucks. Many treat us like we're some small south seas island or part of the Nigerian 419 scams!

We're closer than Alaska. I live a three hour drive from the US boarder, but grew up three blocks from it. If they do let us spend our money, many will only ship by next day air courier with a $20 brokerage charge totalling $60 to send a $20 item. It shouldn't cost five bucks to ship to Great Falls Montana, and a fortune for just a little further north. Apparently none have even heard of the Postal Service.

Some, like Tiger Direct at least make an effort. But look at any product on TigerDirect.com, then just change the page to .ca -- usually there is at least $10 difference, even when the Loonie is ABOVE par. And the shipping is double to that of my brethren down south.
[/Rant Off]

But my original points are still valid. Prices of HDs seem in a greater flux. It's not at the usual "one model down from the biggest size" is the best price. The supply chain is running dry of PATA drives here, and the prices are going up. The longer tail of the US supply chain just means it hasn't hit there yet, but it will.

Often you don't pay provincial sales tax if you're purchasing from out of province, unless you're ordering large inexpensive items the sales tax is often close to shipping costs.

I guess 26 years of living in Alberta has had an effect on me. Since there's no sales tax here, it never even crossed my mind. It also means that your "sales tax = shipping" comment doesn't apply to other Albertans and residents of some states. But it is definitely one of the facts to consider in the "local brick and mortar retailer" vs "online storefront" calculations.

I used my spreadsheets that grab hard drive prices, calculate the price per gig, and highlight the best buys again.

The trend of 500 vs 750 gig drives noted above continues. As does the one where PATA drives are becoming much more expensive than SATA.

The real surprise this time was the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1 terabyte model. They're new at my local supplier, and very well rated by reviewers. I've event seen it said that they outperform the WD Raptors (though not the Velociraptors). Three year warranty too.

The price per gig on these things was 1/100th of one cent different from the "best buy" Seagate 500 gig drive. Of course that also means that cost twice as much as the 500 gig model. All the same, it was a surprise to see a 1 TB drive beat out 500 and 750 gig drives from other manufacturers.