Hard Drive Prices Drop as PC Demand Rises

[malware]

Competition from flash memory and increased shipment of PCs and consumer electronics are driving down prices and fueling demand for hard disk drives, according to a survey released by iSuppli Wednesday. Average pricing of notebook hard drives tumbled, falling to US$53 in the third quarter of 2007, from $86 in the same period during the previous year. Desktop hard drive prices fell to $51 in the third quarter of 2007, compared to $52.75 the previous year, according to the survey. For the study, prices were measured on a disk basis, not per gigabyte. Overall, about 134 million hard drives shipped in the third quarter of 2007, compared to 114 million the previous year, a 21 percent year on year increase, iSuppli found. Prices also dropped from intense competition between six hard drive vendors: Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Samsung, said Krishna Chander, senior analyst at iSuppli. Read the full survey here.

Source: PC World

[ex_reven]

Thats what I like to hear baby!

[Widjaja]

Good timing.
I need a new HDD

[WarEagleAU]

I see many terabytes in our futures.

[magibeg]

I just had a crazy thought..... maybe piracy is actually fueling the internet AND hardware companies and actually improving the economy? What do you think people are putting on all those hard drives

[ex_reven]

Originally Posted by magibeg

I just had a crazy thought..... maybe piracy is actually fueling the internet AND hardware companies and actually improving the economy? What do you think people are putting on all those hard drives

No, its probably just the general decrease in hardware prices, making computers more affordable to all, in turn lowering hardware prices further such as our hard disks.
There probably arnt enough hardcore pirateers to influence that.

Most people who pirate download alot of music and maybe a few games, which at max is like 20gb, hardly the capacity of todays hard drives. Usually theyr just getting music for their ipods and what not and arnt regular pirates.

[AthlonX2]

you have to be kidding me a max of 20gb? the last 3 games i have acquired were at least 7gb a piece so u may want to adjust that figure

[N-Gen]

I could adjust that to a 10-15gb/week I used to get when I used to download MASS files. And when I say mass I really mean it...but really ex_reven has a point on this because most people won't simply download eveything at once. They just get what they need fullstop.

[AthlonX2]

thats is very true and i do believe he said the average user,or even most users..so i can go with 20gb but in todays world alot of games are coming off steam,ea store..music is being delivered digitally through itunes and rhapsody so it doesnt take long to fill 20gb

[N-Gen]

Well most people today are getting minimum 80-120gb as their relatively very cheap. And I think that amount is needed seeing what type of applications we are facing nowadays.

[ex_reven]

Originally Posted by AthlonX2

thats is very true and i do believe he said the average user,or even most users..so i can go with 20gb but in todays world alot of games are coming off steam,ea store..music is being delivered digitally through itunes and rhapsody so it doesnt take long to fill 20gb

Yeah I agree with todays games being huge.
My figures were something like 6 gigs of music, 12 gigs of games.
Im not much of a pirate, I have only 3 gigs of music. But thats still 1200 songs... How many people can possibly listen to that much music .

12 gigs of pirated games is still a few games. If theyr zipped thats between 4-6 games like FEAR or something like that.

Keep in mind that the average user will not only have sufficient hard drive space (about 80-120gigs) but that they probably have mediocre internet, limiting their downloads anyway.

My downloads folder is only 15 gigs. Mostly music and software. Photoshop ftw.

[Snipe343]

im just gonna wait until the yottabyte

[Hawk1]

Dont forget movies. When I used to download japanese anime (usually unavailable in NA), I would download entire series, and those could be 10-15Gb alone.

[spy2520]

i got a 250gb drive full of movies, and around 25gb of music. not necessarily pirated, most of it purchased. but still it fills up quick.

[N-Gen]

Getting all the simpsons seasons would amount you up to a nice 40-45GB downloaded. Now that's a long series isn't it...I have ISO backups of PSP games and movies and seriously I've got over 25 full DVDs just for that...that would take MUCH space on an HDD seeing that games can amount up to 2gb on the psp and the DVDs are all full.

[tigger]

i have 10 dvds full of psp iso's.they took up about 40ish gb on my machine.It seems nowadays even the avg user is using more hdd space than in the past.With disc prices so low people just buy bigger discs which means more space to fill(which you do) which means more discs.

I have 2x250's and a 60gb 2.5" sata external,and space is getting a tad tight now.Its not easy burning off 6gb images here and there,specially as duel layer discs are still not cheap and most i've tried are junk.

[N-Gen]

I'm running 160gb + 120gb on my notebook. 20+80gb on one rig and 160+40 on another rig along with 200gb external...and seriously I'm thinking of a new external 500gb drive...theyre running for like $110 here.