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I have one question, if someone could be so kind as to enlighten me: why there is so little difference between the prices of HDD of 500 GB and 1 TB? Even though a 500 GB HDD has half the capacity of one of 1 TB, it is typically only about 10-20% cheaper than one of 1 TB from the same category. For instance, a 1 TB Seagate is 60$, a 500 GB Seagate is 53$. Should it not have been something around 30-40$?

And, in general, why on Earth have the prices of HDD stalled for years? I don't think I have ever seen before such stagnation in the prices of a specific type of hardware.

Noldor wrote:

I have one question, if someone could be so kind as to enlighten me: why there is so little difference between the prices of HDD of 500 GB and 1 TB? Even though a 500 GB HDD has half the capacity of one of 1 TB, it is typically only about 10-20% cheaper than one of 1 TB from the same category. For instance, a 1 TB Seagate is 60$, a 500 GB Seagate is 53$. Should it not have been something around 30-40$?

Considering that they're probably restricting the 500GB model to just one side of a single platter, why would it be substantially cheaper at all? It's strictly segmentation.

Even if it's actually an older model and therefore one platter versus two, that's not close to it actually costing 1/2 or 1/3 less, is it?

The hardware inside is likely identical, but with one side of the platter disabled due to a defect, etc (as Glorious mentioned). Both 500GB and 1TB drives are an extremely poor values these days anyhow if you calculate by $ per TB. I would buy nothing less than a 2TB.

Glorious wrote:

Noldor wrote:

I have one question, if someone could be so kind as to enlighten me: why there is so little difference between the prices of HDD of 500 GB and 1 TB? Even though a 500 GB HDD has half the capacity of one of 1 TB, it is typically only about 10-20% cheaper than one of 1 TB from the same category. For instance, a 1 TB Seagate is 60$, a 500 GB Seagate is 53$. Should it not have been something around 30-40$?

Considering that they're probably restricting the 500GB model to just one side of a single platter, why would it be substantially cheaper at all? It's strictly segmentation.

Even if it's actually an older model and therefore one platter versus two, that's not close to it actually costing 1/2 or 1/3 less, is it?

Because I assume no one would buy a 500 GB HDD for 53$, when they can get a 1 TB HDD for 60$. Or are there any particular reasons one would prefer to pay almost the same price for half the size?
If the companies are producing their HDD in an efficient manner, that's not the buyer's concern.

The Egg wrote:

The hardware inside is likely identical, but with one side of the platter disabled due to a defect, etc (as Glorious mentioned). Both 500GB and 1TB drives are an extremely poor values these days anyhow if you calculate by $ per TB. I would buy nothing less than a 2TB.

I understand this and that was exactly my point. My puzzlement is why companies don't drop their prices? Do they prefer their HDD to rot in their stores rather than drop the prices? Are they really that much of cheapskates?

If it doesn't sell the manufacturers would drop the price eventually. Since these are the prices, I assume it does sell.
I'm guessing the buyers are people who don't need the capacity and would rather save a few bucks.

Noldor wrote:

The Egg wrote:

The hardware inside is likely identical, but with one side of the platter disabled due to a defect, etc (as Glorious mentioned). Both 500GB and 1TB drives are an extremely poor values these days anyhow if you calculate by $ per TB. I would buy nothing less than a 2TB.

I understand this and that was exactly my point. My puzzlement is why companies don't drop their prices? Do they prefer their HDD to rot in their stores rather than drop the prices? Are they really that much of cheapskates?

It is probably a matter of not wanting to sell the drives below cost, and figuring that there will always be a few people who will opt for the (slightly) cheaper drive with half the capacity, even if it is a poor value. I imagine 500GB drives represent a very small share of overall sales volume anyway.

They are counting on there being enough *customers* out there who are cheapskates, who will willingly forgo the extra capacity even if it only saves them $7, to make it worth maintaining the separate SKU for what is essentially just a 1TB drive with half of the capacity disabled.

Noldor wrote:

I understand this and that was exactly my point. My puzzlement is why companies don't drop their prices? Do they prefer their HDD to rot in their stores rather than drop the prices? Are they really that much of cheapskates?

But we know there is demand, as meerkt says, otherwise they wouldn't go to the effort of the single-sided price segmentation in the first place, and the ones that currently existed in the channel would have their price dropped until they sold.

I'm unsure of why you characterize the companies as "cheapskates", when it's clearly (as this single-sided single platter strategy is not even remotely new) the consumers who are willing to pay just a few less dollars for a half-capacity drive.

Glorious wrote:

Noldor wrote:

I understand this and that was exactly my point. My puzzlement is why companies don't drop their prices? Do they prefer their HDD to rot in their stores rather than drop the prices? Are they really that much of cheapskates?

But we know there is demand, as meerkt says, otherwise they wouldn't go to the effort of the single-sided price segmentation in the first place, and the ones that currently existed in the channel would have their price dropped until they sold.

I'm unsure of why you characterize the companies as "cheapskates", when it's clearly (as this single-sided single platter strategy is not even remotely new) the consumers who are willing to pay just a few less dollars for a half-capacity drive.

Unless the 500 GB drives have an advantage I don't know, I find it hard to believe someone could be so stupid. The difference in price is insignificant and, while you might not need the extra capacity now, there is no guarantee you won't need, say, one year later.

Noldor wrote:

Unless the 500 GB drives have an advantage I don't know, I find it hard to believe someone could be so stupid.

Well, regardless of what we individually think, this isn't some experiment the HDD makers just recently embarked upon that is backfiring as we speak. On the contrary, they've been doing this since as long as I've known enough about hard-drives to determine that it occurs. In other words, it's been going on for at least something like two decades now.

So, yes, however "stupid" or whatever, these people clearly exist.

Noldor wrote:

The difference in price is insignificant and, while you might not need the extra capacity now, there is no guarantee you won't need, say, one year later.

You are thinking like you. Let me tell you how two different groups of people who are not you might think:

Group 1: Institutional buyer. For this person it must be the same (for any number of reasons). If the product was 500GB when first spec'd, it'll be 500GB forever. To them, it's not a matter of "capacity" or "disk space". It is a matter of making *numbers* the same. They don't distinguish between hard-drives or bolts, basically. 500GB = 500GB. 10mm = 10mm.

...and it's not just strictly institutional either. You've never encountered a person replacing something in their computer who demands the EXACT replacement, or as close as possible? You know, you're like "but this is better and..." "IS IT THE SAME THOUGH?"

Group 2: People with arrays of disks. If it's an older array that needs a replacement disk, why *not* save some dollars? The extra space would never actually be used, and they're probably going to retire the whole thing when they're done with it regardless.

Noldor wrote:

Unless the 500 GB drives have an advantage I don't know, I find it hard to believe someone could be so stupid. The difference in price is insignificant and, while you might not need the extra capacity now, there is no guarantee you won't need, say, one year later.

It's not stupidity; it's all they need. 250GB worth of data is 250GB worth of data. A 1TB that is $20 more is going to hold the data just as well as a 500GB drive, so why spend the money? Wasted space is wasted space. Most people don't have a lot of data. Some of us have terabytes of data, but we're computer enthusiasts.

Buying 2x 500GB drives to store greater then 500GB worth of data doesn't make sense, but why bother with the 1TB drive if you're not going to touch max capacity? Does the 1TB drive have some advantage I don't know about, aside from showing off how much money you have to waste?

You can pretty much plan for data consumption. Plus, the 1TB drive will be obsolete within a year. There will be drives with greater capacity at lower prices, and external interfaces will have changed to faster and different protocols. If you don't have to buy one now, wait.

Glorious wrote:

Group 1: Institutional buyer. For this person it must be the same (for any number of reasons).

...and it's not just strictly institutional either. You've never encountered a person replacing something in their computer who demands the EXACT replacement, or as close as possible? You know, you're like "but this is better and..." "IS IT THE SAME THOUGH?"

Group 2: People with arrays of disks. If it's an older array that needs a replacement disk, why *not* save some dollars? The extra space would never actually be used, and they're probably going to retire the whole thing when they're done with it regardless.

Oh yes, stable builds where everything is tested and approved. Introducing anything new would require everything to be re-certified or support is terminated. There are people who do require hard drives to be certified for the orientation they will be installed in for production, and I've met them.

Not to mention Group 2 would have to replace all of the disks in the array to make use of the extra space, so there is no reason to spend an extra $20.

Flatland_Spider wrote:

Plus, the 1TB drive will be obsolete within a year.

That's simply not true. I mean, I would really love that to be the case, but, fact is, the capacity/speed progression of HDD drives has slowed to a crawl. The typical speed and capacity of the HDD is pretty much the same as it was FIVE years ago. In 2011, 500 GB was the standard for small storage requirements, 1 TB were for medium and 2 TB for large, with drives of 3 or 4 TB being reserved only for enthusiast builds.
My desktop still runs on 2 x 1 TB HDD with 32 MB Buffers from 2010, which cost me at that time around 60$ each. It is exactly the same as they cost today.
The typical medium laptop build has 500 GB drives, with 1 TB reserved for enthusiast.
I kept a close watch on the evolution of HDD prices, capacities and speeds, because over the last years I needed more and more storage space, but the statement that "the 1 TB drive will be obsolete within a year" is fantasy. I wish you were right, but, unfortunately, the improvements in HDD technology seem to have reached a physical threshold.

Noldor wrote:

My desktop still runs on 2 x 1 TB HDD with 32 MB Buffers from 2010, which cost me at that time around 60$ each. It is exactly the same as they cost today.

Now I'm confused.

I can buy an ultra-reliable HGST 64MB *2TB* drive for like 60-70. In fact, I just did like two months ago.

So, according to the same argument you started this thread with, why wouldn't I?

It is faster. It probably has the same or less number of platters so the energy consumption is comparable or better. The reliability of that model is astounding and, again, comparable or better.

Therefore, isn't a 1 TB drive obsolete when a 2 TB drive like that, for the same price, is available?

In a couple of years, you'll probably be able to get a 1TB SSD for what a 1TB HDD costs today.

just brew it! wrote:

In a couple of years, you'll probably be able to get a 1TB SSD for what a 1TB HDD costs today.

That's a bit of a optimistic view jbi!, I give 2-3 years myself considering the pricing for m.2 sticks.

biffzinker wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

In a couple of years, you'll probably be able to get a 1TB SSD for what a 1TB HDD costs today.

That's a bit of a optimistic view jbi!, I give 2-3 years myself considering the pricing for m.2 sticks.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/couple

Definition #4: "an indefinite small number : few <a couple of days ago>"

Opps, I missed the couple. I originally read it as a year, and thought you were nuts for thinking prices would drop that much.

Glorious wrote:

Noldor wrote:

My desktop still runs on 2 x 1 TB HDD with 32 MB Buffers from 2010, which cost me at that time around 60$ each. It is exactly the same as they cost today.

Now I'm confused.

I can buy an ultra-reliable HGST 64MB *2TB* drive for like 60-70. In fact, I just did like two months ago.

So, according to the same argument you started this thread with, why wouldn't I?

It is faster. It probably has the same or less number of platters so the energy consumption is comparable or better. The reliability of that model is astounding and, again, comparable or better.

Therefore, isn't a 1 TB drive obsolete when a 2 TB drive like that, for the same price, is available?

He said "the 1 TB HDD will be obsolete within a year". Your 2 TB HDD you referred to was bought almost SIX years later than the ones I mentioned. The improvement in price/performance is far smaller than what one should have expected after 6 years, which is exactly what I said (that HDD improvement slowed to a crawl, I did not say it has stopped completely).

Second, I must specify that I was talking about the prices on retail in my country (which sometimes are a bit higher than those from international sellers like Amazon due to import tax). The cheapest 2 TB HDD is a 7200 RPM 64 MB Seagate Barracuda which is 85$. The cheapest 1 TB HDD is another Seagate Barracuda with 7200 RPM and 64 MB buffer, which is 54$.
There is a significant difference in price between the 1 TB and 2 TB, but that is not the point. The main point is that the prices now, in April 2016, for the 1 TB and 2 TB desktop drives are pretty much the same as they were in 2010-2011. The 2016 HDD has a 64 MB buffer instead of 32, but, frankly, that's not impressive at all keeping in mind that there is a almost SIX year gap between them (and buffer size does not even matter that much). The initial reading speed of the 2010 drives was around 130-140 MB/s. I don't know what is the initial reading speed on 2016 drives, as it's not written in the specifications, and I don't have a desktop HDD that new, so maybe you can tell me what's the reading speed on yours.
And, btw, since you praise its reliability so much, you made me curious. Can you give me a link to the model of your HDD?

I have a bigger sample size of external 2.5 drives which is what I typically use for storage. An external 1 TB Adata I have from 2011 (the drive inside is a Toshiba) USB 3.0 has an initial reading speed of 85 MB, 8 MB buffer and it cost 85$. A Seagate I bought in June 2014, also of 1 TB, has an initial reading speed of about 100 MB/s and 8 MB buffer and it cost about 75$. The difference in price and performance between them was minimal and it's a 3 years gap between them. I have a 2 TB external HDD bought just this year and 1 TB drives dating from 2011, so I can compare them directly and the latter are nowhere near to be obsolete.

In a couple of years, you'll probably be able to get a 1TB SSD for what a 1TB HDD costs today.

With all due respect, I think some of you are making such claims reflexively. If the HDD would have improved at the rate some of you seem to think, 5 TB drives should have been the common standard by now... and they are not.

SSDs are currently improving rapidly in price/capacity. HDDs are not. Even a low-end TLC SSD will outperform a mechanical HDD, and prices are falling.

Kinda surprised this thread is still going. If (for whatever myriad of reasons) folks want to get half the capacity for only $7 savings, that's their own deal. If HDD makers are able to sell enough of said drives at a pricepoint where they're making money, more power to them. I don't see any losers here, as the consumer is getting exactly what they want.

The Egg wrote:

Kinda surprised this thread is still going. If (for whatever myriad of reasons) folks want to get half the capacity for only $7 savings, that's their own deal. If HDD makers are able to sell enough of said drives at a pricepoint where they're making money, more power to them. I don't see any losers here, as the consumer is getting exactly what they want.

Well, when I first started this thread, I honestly there might have been some other perks to the 500 GB HDD. I just could not believe someone could rationally pick a drive with half the capacity for just a 7$ saving.

Noldor wrote:

The Egg wrote:

Kinda surprised this thread is still going. If (for whatever myriad of reasons) folks want to get half the capacity for only $7 savings, that's their own deal. If HDD makers are able to sell enough of said drives at a pricepoint where they're making money, more power to them. I don't see any losers here, as the consumer is getting exactly what they want.

Well, when I first started this thread, I honestly there might have been some other perks to the 500 GB HDD. I just could not believe someone could rationally pick a drive with half the capacity for just a 7$ saving.

If you don't need the space, you're spending extra money for no gain. For people who need to save every last dollar, yeah, this stuff can be good (i.e. what's the cheapest possible SSD I can buy that's reliable, especially for an old web browsing machine?). My old Macbook has Chrome/Office/Dropbox installed, and 50GB/120GB used - I just don't have much I want to put on it. My mom had ~60GB used on a 500GB drive the last I checked (a whole 12%!), so a 240GB SSD still has plenty of headroom for years to come.

With my phone's 16GB drive, on the other hand, I whack into those limits all the time. Blame the people who decided to include relatively little storage, then bloat up the OS and apps relative to it so the user, percentage wise, has relatively little available for their stuff (maybe half that at best, which doesn't go far if you use the camera regularly - it's really quite pathetic, compared to how far a cheap SD card gets you in a regular camera these days).

localhostrulez wrote:

If you don't need the space, you're spending extra money for no gain. For people who need to save every last dollar, yeah, this stuff can be good

If a person needs to pinch pennies like that, then they're probably better off spending what they've got on something other than a PC upgrade.

If they just want to forcibly ignore product segmentation and stick it to some company by still buying their stuff at roughly the same price I'd say that's weird, but I guess they can.

Redocbew wrote:

localhostrulez wrote:

If you don't need the space, you're spending extra money for no gain. For people who need to save every last dollar, yeah, this stuff can be good

If a person needs to pinch pennies like that, then they're probably better off spending what they've got on something other than a PC upgrade.

If they just want to forcibly ignore product segmentation and stick it to some company by still buying their stuff at roughly the same price I'd say that's weird, but I guess they can.

Hmm, maybe. Thing is though - if you can spend $X amount of money and do the job perfectly, or spend $X+10 and not gain anything, why spend more? Especially if you're pretty sure that the person in question most definitely won't need or notice the extra space anyway.

Thinking about non-profit groups I've worked with (ex. HDD failures/getting things running again on the cheap), my mom (she uses ~60GB on a 500GB drive - so a 120GB SSD is probably fine, a 240GB has plenty of headroom and is what I'll probably pick for her next machine, and anything more is pure overkill for nothing), etc.

Not saying I'd buy a 500GB drive these days (desktops especially) for myself, but in general...