Guide to Buying Hard Drives [bestcomputersprices.blogspot.com]

Guide to Buying Hard Drives [bestcomputersprices.blogspot.com]

Question by Just Livin' Life: Wouldn't Apple get much more business by lowering their prices? I'm asking this because I really want an iPad for Christmas and I went to the Apple store today with my dad to show him. He says they're too expensive. They're black Friday "sale" was $ 41 off (it helps, but it's not much compared to the price tag). We also looked at computers and my dad even admitted their computers and laptops were superior to PCs but they're just way too expensive. So my question is, why doesn't Apple just lower their prices? It literally doesn't cost Apple any more than $ 20 at the most to assemble a single item. If they lowered their prices, they would get more customers which would in turn lead to higher sales and would probably increase their income too. The main reason I'm asking this is because I don't see why the iPad has to be $ 500 and $ 41 off is only 8% off the regular price. And they call that Black Friday. Anyone know why their stuff is so expensive? Their desktops have a terrabyte of storage. No PC that I'm aware of offers that much storage. Not that I would need that much, but I've also noticed that Apple software runs much more smoothly than Windows. Best answer for Wouldn't Apple get much more business by lowering their prices?:

Answer by Garrett Schick
Because people like you drink the Kool-aid and shell out the cash to join the Steve Jobs fan club. "my dad even admitted their computers and laptops were superior to PCs" Laptops? Maybe. Desktops? LOL. Yes, if paying 2-3x as much for the exact same hardware is "superior"... Why do you want an ipad anyway? It's just a huge iphone that doesn't make calls. WOW A WHOLE TERABYTE OF STORAGE???? OMG!!!!! Look here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%20600003269&IsNodeId=1&name=1TB%20and%20higher imbecile.

Answer by JIM
Apple have lots of stores which are very expensive to run. PC manufacturers don't have stores and so don't have that extra expense. Apples stores are generally in the most exclusive (and expensive) part of town

Answer by butchone
To be honest with you they are taking advantage of you if you feel such a "urgency" to buy this product . Really what the rush? So what if it is christmans, you know full well that the price WILL GO DOWN. Any hot new product starts high then ramps down because of the cheap imitations. Remember when hand held camaras were $ 5000 ?? Now they are $ 35 at family dollar...... Get the kids something else until that price goes down. Alternative 2 is to simply wait until someone sells theirs. Believe ,me I have seen 1000's of time where people, so anxious for the new thing, will sell something they just got a month ago simply because they see somebody with the "hot new" item . Dont be thirsty and just wait

Answer by Peter Luhanto
They keep their stuff so (relatively) expensive because they can. They have unique products that no other company on this planet offer. And not only are their products one of a kind, they also come with thousands of apps that not many of their competitors offer. This pricing model works fine for Apple. It is the world's third biggest company in market capitalization (after Petro China and Exxon Mobil).

Answer by han Baobao
Its about image, they position their products as high quality hey look at me products. Selling cheap stuff would tarnish their image. Like look at levi jeans they are trying hard to sell their jeans as premium expensive "hey look at me" type clothes they the ruined it by spending years selling their jeans in K mart and having people with mullets and metallica shirts buy their products. . . . .no one wants to look like a metallica fan. . . . .not even metallica fans. Also lets take Sony for example they used to be top notch electronics dealer, but then they expanded and expanded into so many electronic divisions and offering so many price ranges they they lost their prestige premium image. Now Sony just appears to be a low end barely high tech firm thats on the verge of bankruptcy.

Answer by Mammie Klukas
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Apart from being one of the most essential parts of your computer, hard drive storage is constantly updating, in terms of both capacity of disk space and in physical size. When it comes time to upgrade your disk storage, there are a number of factors for you to take into account. Once you've made basic decisions about size, connectivity, speed and data transfer rate, and whether you want an internal drive or external, you can search through Myshopping.com.au to find the most suitable brand, and model, and compare the prices of different vendors.

How A Hard Drive Works

Your hard drive has a number of magnetized platters connected to a spindle. The spindle spins the platters at a very fast speed while a series of read/write heads scan over them both looking for and writing information. This information is transferred via a cable system, or through a wireless connection to a hard disk controller, which in most systems is built into the motherboard, or i n some systems installed as an add-in card. The information that comes from your hard drive through its controller is then made available to the components of your computer. The effectiveness of your hard drive (its performance) depends on how much of its capacity remains unused, how well organised the data is (known as fragmentation) and its data transfer rate, which in turn is dependent on its connection type and the drive's spin rate.

Internal Hard Drives

Most computers from, the most basic home models up to the most powerful servers, have an internally installed hard drive. Technology today ensures that they are all generally fast, reliable, and offer dependable storage ability. Most modern computers have installation slots and cabling to enable you to install additional hard drive. This allows you to increase your storage capacity without giving up your existing hard drive.

Internal Hard Drives

External Hard Drives

These drive s are essentially the same drives as ones installed inside computers, but cased inside a protective, portable case. This is a good solution for people who work remotely and need to transport large amounts of data. If an external hard drive is your choice, make sure your computer is compatible with the interface that the hard drive uses. An add-in card, such as a FireWire card can help to increase your computer's capabilities. You can compare different brands of external hard drives simply at Myshopping.com.au and search on the connection type, or other specifications.

External Hard drives

Laptop Hard Drives

There have been many advances in miniaturization of hardware components for laptop computing, and hard drive technology is not left out of this loop. Laptop hard drives function in exactly the same way as internal hard drives on other computers, only they are designed to provide maximum storage and efficiency in the smallest possible package. For added flexibility, some laptop computers come with removable hard drives that can be easily installed and removed. However, before you buy a hard drive for your portable computer, check that the hard drive's specifications will meet the standards of your computer, as many laptop hard drives are proprietary, and are not compatible with other brands and models.

Laptop Hard Drives

Size

Your hard drive stores your operating system, its programs (games and applications), your working data, and your digital music and movies. Most new computer purchases have a minimum of 80 GB of hard disk space; many have considerably more. Hard drive space is one of those things, once you have it, you'll find ways to fill it soon enough. There is no real rule of thumb, but consider the cost per gigabyte of storage as a way to guide your purchase. If you work with large files, such as music, video and graphics, it pays to have a big storage space for your work. It may pay you to have two hard drives, one that houses all your programs and applications, and another for storing your work and projects.

You may want to compare the price of say a 160GB drive against two separate 80 GB drives. If one drive fails all is not lost. Today's hard drives however, are fairly robust pieces of equipment and providing they are not abuse, will serve you well for a long period of time.

Interface

One key distinguishing factor between hard drives is the way in which they connect to your computer. There are a number of basic types of connection schemes used with hard drives. Each connection type has a range of differences in performance.

IDE (INTEGRATED DRIVE ELECTRONICS)

This is by the most common connection methods. Because the hard drive controller is on the drive itself rather than on the motherboard, it helps to keep costs down. There different IDE standards available. Mostly, you will want to purchase the fastest p ossible standard that your computer can support. Most computers will support a standard that is faster than what the computer currently supports, so you can buy a faster drive, and update your computer at a later time. The different IDE standards, in order from most basic to fastest, are:

ATA (Basic). Supports up to two hard drives and features a 16-bit interface, handling transfer speeds up to 8.3 MB per second.ATA-2 or EIDE (Enhanced IDE). Supports transfer speeds up to 13.3 MB per second.ATA-3. A minor upgrade to ATA-2 and offers transfer speeds up to 16.6 MB per second.Ultra-ATA (Ultra-DMA, ATA-33 or DMA-33). Dramatic speed improvements, with transfer rates up to 33 MB per second.ATA-66. A version of ATA that doubles transfer rates up to 66 MB per second.ATA-100. An upgrade to the ATA standard supporting transfer rates up to 100 MB per second.ATA-133. Found mostly in AMD-based systems (not supported by Intel), with transfer rates up to 133 MB per second.

SCSI (SM ALL COMPUTER SYSTEM INTERFACE)

This is the hard drive interface standard used by many high-end PCs, networks and servers, and Apple Macintosh computers, except for the earliest Macs and the newer iMacs. While some systems support SCSI controllers on their motherboards, most feature a SCSI controller add-in card. SCSI drives are usually faster and more reliable, and the SCSI interface supports the connection of many more drives than IDE. While SCSI drives come in many different standards, many of them are not compatible with one another. So it's important be know that your computer supports the drive you plan to install. The different SCSI connections are:

SCSI-1. A basic connection using a 25-pin connector, supporting transfer rates up to 4 MB per second.SCSI-2. Uses a 50-pin connector and supports multiple devices with a transfer rate of 4MB per second.Wide SCSI. These drives have a wider cable and a 68-pin connection that supports 16-bit data transfers.Fast SC SI. Uses an 8-bit bus but transfers data at 10 MB Per second.Fast Wide SCSI. Doubles both the bus (16-bit) and the data transfer rate (20 MB per second).Ultra SCSI or Ultra Wide SCSI. Uses an 8-bit bus and transfers data at 20 MB per second.SCSI-3. Features a 16-bit bus and transfers data at 40 MB per second. Ultra2 SCSI. Uses an 8-bit bus and transfer data at a rate of 40 MB per second.Wide Ultra2 SCSI. Uses a 16-bit bus and supports data transfer rates of 80 MB per second.

FIREWIRE (IEEE 1394)

The FireWire standard is becoming popular in portable hard drives because it can be connected and removed without having to reboot the computer. It supports data transfer rates of 50 MB per second, which means it is ideal for video, audio and multimedia applications. FireWire requires a dedicated add-in card and the hard drives in use require an external power source, but the interface can support up to 63 devices simultaneously.

USB 1.1 (UNIVERSAL SERIAL BUS)

Pretty much all computers today include USB ports on their motherboards. (On older model, you can install an add-in card.) USB controllers can be used to connect external hard drives, and can support as many as 127 devices simultaneously either through USB port hubs or linked in a daisy chain fashion. USB controllers do delivery power to devices connected to them, but many hard drives still use an external power source. USB is limited by its data transfer speed, the maximum rate being about at 1.5 MB per second.

USB 2.0 (HI-SPEED USB)

A more recently introduced and far better connection standard that offers backward compatibility and data transfer rates of up to 60 MB per second. USB 1.1 system can use a USB 2.0 device; it will need a USB 2.0 controller card to achieve the higher transfer rates.

FIBRE CHANNEL

Fibre Cabling is mainly used for high-bandwidth network servers and workstations, providing very fast data transfer rat es (up to 106MB per second), and connection at long cabled distances, although it is expensive and you need to install a special interface card.

Spin rate

Data transfer rate is crucial to how well your computer performs for you. Apart from the connection types above, the performance of your hard drive depends on its spin rate, measured in RPM. Higher RPM generally means faster data transfer rate. The lowest spin speed that is acceptable in computing today is 5400 RPM. The common standard at present is 7200 RPM. But higher speeds are available in SCSI drives, and it is one area of computer system technology that is constantly being developed.

A larger capacity hard drive will not necessarily make your system function any faster unless you are low on available disk space with your existing drive. But a drive with Ultra ATA/100 or ATA/133 and a 7200 RPM spin rate will pretty much guarantee an improved hard drive performance.

Other considerations

CACHE

Cache (pronounces 'cash') is additional temporary memory that acts as a buffer between the system and the drive. Frequently accessed data is stored in the cache for quick access. Cache sizes vary from 512 KB up to 16 MB on some SCSI drives. The larger cache you have on your drive, the faster your drive will transfer data. If you are working with large files, such as video, images and audio files, it pays to have the largest cache you can get (8MB or more).

SEEK TIME

The data on your disk is stored in tracks and sectors and when you instruct your hard drive controller to retrieve some data, it goes looking. The seek time is a measure of how long it takes the hard drive to find a specific track on a disk. Seek times can vary slightly from disk to disk and a drive with a faster seek time will always perform better.

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL TRANSFER RATES

These two rates tell how fast a drive actually reads the data and passes it along to the system. Internal Transfer Rate refers to the time it takes for a drives heads to read data from the platter and pass it to the drive's cache. The External Transfer Rate (sometimes called the Transfer Rate or the Burst Transfer Rate) is a measure of the time it takes to send the data from the cache all the way to the computer's memory. Naturally faster transfer rates provide better performance.

S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology)

This is a nice built-in feature in some hard drives that can help alert you to a potential hardware problem. Your computer's BIOS must support this in order for the SMART function it to work, however the drive itself will still work in a system without it.

Buying and installing a hard drive has some technical aspects that you need to take into account. Use Myshopping.com.au to compare different hard drive makes and specifications to find the drive that will work best for your needs and computer. You can compare prices and service offers from different vendors.

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