3TB Western Digital Red 3.5" SATA Internal Hard Drive (WD30EFRX) $138 after $20 rebate + Free Shipping

I'm just wondering why the prices on HDD's is still so high. I know the flood disasters in Japan caused production issues last year to keep prices up, but this is stunning to me that we are still talking $0.046/GB is a good deal. I got a 2TB External WD drive on Black Friday 2010 for $65 at $.033/GB, and would have figured normal prices would be down to that by now.

I haven't heard great things about the WD reds - and I'm really not sure how they're different from the greens in application.

Good price for internal 3TB, but there have been many 3TB externals around this price without need for rebate that are easy enough to crack open (eg http://slickdeals.net/f/5453758-T...3J1-119-FS)

That seagate only carries a 1 year warranty for one thing.

I know the flood disasters in Japan caused production issues last year to keep prices up,

Limit 1 kills it for me. Pretty dumb rebate if you ask ne since these are marketed as NAS drives

Consolidation of manufacturers = less competition. No need to be as competitive in pricing when there are only 3 manufacturers remaining.

logistics costs from new supply chains and vendors plus industry consolidation means little incentive for drive companies to lower prices from a profit standpoint.P

i was just thinking the same thing... anyone buying just one of these obviously doesn't understand their purpose.

How can people demand more?

We're screwed, plain and simple.The consolidation doomed us all. Seagate is real crap, reflected in their garbage warranties and extreme price gouging, and WD also reduced warranties - not as much as crap Seagate - but they offer little choice for NAS/storage solutions.

If you have a viable solution I'd love to read/hear about it. People need storage, most of them are ignorant of the quality issues, and telling them usually produces a glazed look and they buy anyway.

i was just thinking the same thing... anyone buying just one of these obviously doesn't understand their purpose.

Damnit, using the 5% Discover cash back link and the bonus 5% Discover cash back, I couldn't resist (damnit again)!!!

That seagate only carries a 1 year warranty for one thing.

If you use raid 5 and have 3 drives for instance, a single drive failure wont bring things down though.

i was just thinking the same thing... anyone buying just one of these obviously doesn't understand their purpose.

or they own 3+ already.

anyone NOT buying one of these just because this rebate limit is one, two weeks before BF is coming, or hasn't already bought one of these in a previous sale, obviously does not understand that you don't have to buy everything at once

So what you are telling me is that these drives will work better in a NAS because the warranty is longer. How would a warranty effect NAS performance? And then you are telling me that somehow raid 5 will function differently with these compared to any other disk? Can you please clarify that or provide a link to your source?

I paid $119 for greens recently, so I'm not sure how this is slick unless the reds are more pricey.