Good Deal on Storage - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

05/05/2006 10:14:47 AM · #1

I just bought a 500 GB WD "My Book" (external USB drive) yesterday. Hope it's reliable, but it was too cheap to pass up.

$250 for 500GB at buy.com.

I order lots from buy.com and I've been happy with them. I ordered it yesterday midday, the free shipping option, came this morning. Amazon sometimes has cheaper prices (not this time), but they are slow as hell at shipping if you choose the free shipping option (not the shippers fault--Amazon holds the orders longer when you choose free shipping.

Here's a Game: Who here has the most online storage? Count only hard drives running right now. My main machine has 1.2 terabytes :) That brings me up to approximately 2.2 terabytes (I'll have to sit down and add properly). But I'm sure there's a few of you out there with more, so let's hear it!

Rikki

Canon EOS-20D

05/05/2006 10:43:07 AM · #2

i have 1.8 terabytes.

300 gig SATA (main drive) and 6 external drives.

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

05/05/2006 10:49:19 AM · #3

Well, as usual, false advertising for hard drives. The 500GB hard drive is only 465GB as delivered. How do they get away with it? We are talking 35GB! Not even a legal disclaimer on the box which says 500GB.

_eug

Nikon D50

05/05/2006 10:53:05 AM · #4

People have been argueing this very issue for years. The manufacturers count Mega one way and everyone else counts Mega differently.

Inertia has stopped them from changing, because who would buy a 465 GB drive when the competition is selling a 500 GB drive, right?

Telehubbie

Canon EOS-40D

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

05/05/2006 10:57:40 AM · #5

I was looking at that one at Buy.com, and at the time it was $289 (still not bad). So I ordered the giant Lego and figured I can build the Golden Gate Bridge across my desk as I get more.

freakin_hilarious

Canon EOS-550D Rebel T2i

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

05/05/2006 11:00:22 AM · #6

Alas, hard drive manufacturers always market their drives using an inaccurate definition of GB (or MB for that matter). For marketing purposes, they consider 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. In reality,
1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes. Thus, when you set up the drive on the computer, it uses the real definition and you end up with fewer GB than you see on the box.

darnok

Nikon D850

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 16-35 f/4 ED VR

05/05/2006 11:10:34 AM · #7

You get 93.13% of the labelled value due to the difference in calculation method.

Canon EOS-20D

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

05/05/2006 11:15:27 AM · #8

It's good to hear that Neil has had good experiences with buy.com but I still might think twice about ordering from them. They have a rather misreable and plummeting record at resellerratings.com.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

05/05/2006 11:48:35 AM · #9

Originally posted by mk:

It's good to hear that Neil has had good experiences with buy.com but I still might think twice about ordering from them. They have a rather misreable and plummeting record at resellerratings.com.

Well in all fairness to them, many people who buy and are satisfied don't bother to fill in reports at resellerratings. (Which is a shame, since we rely on them.)

I'm guilty as well, I usually only fill those out when unhappy. But I just went and rated them "excellent".

I've been buying from them since Feb 2002. I have 6 pages of orders, and I only had to return an item once (a Python book, and they sent the wrong one). They paid return shipping and all was well.

I always check prices on Amazon and elsewhere too. Lately Amazon has been a bit cheaper more often. But I've been unhappy with delivery times for Amazon orders. Never been unhappy with Buy.com in that regard--I've been mostly amazed.

I'm sure every store has it's issues. And I don't ask for (nor expect) after purchase support from that kind of store (other than returns for defects.) But personally, with a lot of experience behind, I wouldn't hesitate to order from them.

Not an advertisement--not affiliated, of course--but to me as a long time customer, I think their record stands on its own.

(Actually, when I looked up my records to enter at resellerratings, I realize I ordered on Wed midday. So correction: it actually took two days to arrive UPS ground this time.)

Message edited by author 2006-05-05 11:55:25.

Ampao64

Canon EOS-30D

05/05/2006 12:10:11 PM · #10

Originally posted by nshapiro:

465GB = 499,289,948,160 bytes.

465 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024

They use both the 1,000s (metric system) and the 1024 (bit system [?]) to fool the consumer.

DjFenzl

05/05/2006 12:56:03 PM · #11

i look at it kind of like hamburgers. You by a quar pound hamburger from McDonalds is weighed before cooking so when you actually get it it's 20-30% lighter. Same with steak etc... Gotta love marketing but truth is it's not a flat out lie, just misleading.

From my understanding if you didn't format the drive it's 500Gb, it's the formating that "cooks off the fat"