I've got an old PPC based 12" Aluminum PowerBook. It's in excellent condition. About a month ago, I started getting spinning beach balls so I got a copy of Scannerz and did a scan on the drive. The drive had some repeatable irregularities, which means some of the sectors were "weak." Finally the thing got worse over a period of a month and now the test results are showing flat out bad sectors in the 10G-20G range. This is an **original** drive. The unit used to be my main system years ago, but as the hardware and times changed I moved up. I've kept using this thing in the morning to check e-mail and go to weather.com to check out the weather maps, etc. It still works great for what I use it for.
Several years ago I was at a store and there was a 2.5" 80G WD HD, and it was for sale for about $60. I thought to myself "you know, you really ought to get that, the price is cheap." I didn't because I figured I could always get it later. Well, I can, but now the price is about $140! I've checked some other web sources and most that are selling new drives are asking a lot to. You can get a 500G SATA 2.5" for as low as $60 (maybe even lower if on sale) but they want a ton for an IDE drive. Others are selling "refurbished" drives for a lot less, but I figure they're likely repaired junk. Some claim they're overstock, but if they were overstock, why would they call them "refurbished." Refurbished means it's been repaired, overstock means it's new, never used, and the manufacturer made too many of them. Why would someone sell a "refurbished" drive that's new but overstock when they could charge almost 5 times as much calling it new.
Have I just been looking in the wrong places? I tend to look locally mostly but some of the better known web vendors seem to be pulling the same stunt. Is anyone even making IDE drives anymore?
source
Several years ago I was at a store and there was a 2.5" 80G WD HD, and it was for sale for about $60. I thought to myself "you know, you really ought to get that, the price is cheap." I didn't because I figured I could always get it later. Well, I can, but now the price is about $140! I've checked some other web sources and most that are selling new drives are asking a lot to. You can get a 500G SATA 2.5" for as low as $60 (maybe even lower if on sale) but they want a ton for an IDE drive. Others are selling "refurbished" drives for a lot less, but I figure they're likely repaired junk. Some claim they're overstock, but if they were overstock, why would they call them "refurbished." Refurbished means it's been repaired, overstock means it's new, never used, and the manufacturer made too many of them. Why would someone sell a "refurbished" drive that's new but overstock when they could charge almost 5 times as much calling it new.
Have I just been looking in the wrong places? I tend to look locally mostly but some of the better known web vendors seem to be pulling the same stunt. Is anyone even making IDE drives anymore?
source
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