I'm starting this as a generic thread for "bargains" on hard disks. This may even be a good thread to make sticky, since it's a common topic here...

New Egg currently has a deal on Samsung 160Gb 7200rpm IDE, 2Mb cache drives for $94 or ~$0.58/Gb. Not the speediest drive in the world, but it's supposed to be cool and quiet, and should be plenty fast for a KnoppMyth box. http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=22-152-011&depa=0

Best Buy has a Western Digital 250/7200/8meg cache hd for $150 after $40 rebate. They say they're sold out online, not sure if you'd be able to find one in stores... Price comes out to $0.60/gig.

Here is a one day sale from Fry's for the west coasters...

http://latimes.p2ionline.com/shoppingchannel/popup/index.aspx?WebStoryID=6506066&type=cat&area=ROP&adid=1137455&pop=1

This is a really great price ($0.35 / Gb !!!) on this drive which runs quiet, cool and reasonably fast. I was happy to get it for $99.99 a month ago. Even without the rebate is still decent at $0.75 / Gb.

250GB 8MB-cache hard drive $130 - $0.52/Gb

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=302225&pfp=SEARCH

Maxtor 120GB Internal Hard Drive, 7200 RPM 6\8Mb cache for ~$0.66/Gb with no rebates.

http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?id=678808

http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?oid=80169&WT.mc_n=85&c=1&b=g&u=c&WT.mc_t=I

Circuit city instore only

200GB $99 ($170 - $70 rebate)

thru 12-June

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA

Very cool at $0.50/Gb!

went to buy the 200GB and couldnt resist the 250GB at BestBuy for 160...more per GB but I wanted bigger

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA

$0.64 /Gb isn't bad either and the extra space is very nice to have.

I've come to the conclusion that given sale prices, the HD space a recording uses now is cheaper than when I was buying good blank VHS tapes to record stuff. I figure $0.64/Gb * 4.4Gb is well under $3.00 for 2 hours.

Archiving things to DVD is cheaper but quite a bit more work...

OK, add this 10% off coupon to the $160 price at Best Buy (how long was that price good?) and do even better! ~$0.58/Gb

http://www.hotdealsclub.com/text/bestbuy31/bestbuy.pdf

EDIT - This also says "can not be combined with other offers" and the rebate deal is just such an offer. Oh well...

after magnifing the small print

also it says 'External Hard Drives'

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R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA

Maxtor 250GB, 7200RPM, Internal ATA/133 Hard Drive for $130 or $0.52/Gb at CompUSA, and without any mail in rebate nonsense!

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=302225

Also worth considering, a Samsung 160GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model SP1604N (only 2Mb cache however) for $90 or about $0.56/Gb at NewEgg.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-152-011

Here are a couple from NewEgg:

SAMSUNG 160GB 7200RPM IDE Hard Drive, Model SP1604N (only 2Mb cache) - $91 ($0.56/Gb) This should be plenty fast as a data drive, and it gets mentioned as being both quiet and cool.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-152-011

Western Digital 250GB USB 2.0/FireWire External Hard Drive, Model WDXC2500JBRNN - $226.99 - $30 mail in rebate = $196.99 Even without the rebate $0.90/Gb is still a decent price for an external drive, with it's $0.79/Gb.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-214

I recently bought a few 200GB 7200 rpm hard drives from mwave.com for $88 USD (+shipping). That's $0.44 per gig! Limit of one per customer, unfortunately. And who knows how long supplies will last? I don't know if that price is available directly on the site or only through pricegrabber.com

I got 4 of them (using 3 friends as customers) and will be setting up all 4 drives in an LVM array for the big file server in the basement (6 IDE channels on the motherboard), which will also act as the repository for all MythTV recordings. That's 800GB of fast storage for about $350!!! Not too shabby...

I think this is the URL for the 200 GB drive offer he's talking about above:

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=607706/ut=0c2e6aa146b3148b

There are some pretty decent base prices here (pick a highly rated merchant) and an additional; $40 rebate from some of them.