[MW Forums]

OWC is offering a new portable 160GB hard disk drive with FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connections. more

[Nobody]

Nice, but why are these drives so slow and expensive?
You can buy a faster 7.200 rpm 500 GB drive for less!!!

[moose_n_squirrel]

You're not getting it. These are 2.5-inch drives, for laptops (and Mac minis), which is why they are slower and more expensive. But they do two things that your 3.5-inch 7200RPM 500GB drive cannot. If your PowerBook internal drive dies you can take the external out of the case and swap it in for instant recovery if you mirrored your internal drive to it. And you can easily pack this small drive during travel as an extra drive or emergency backup, and all you have to carry is the FireWire cable because it is bus-powered, try that with the 3.5-incher. I own the less expensive smaller capacity versions of this and I love 'em.
Different form factors have their place. If small-capacity, slow hard drives are always a terrible value compared to desktop-size drives, then from a cost-per-GB point of view, buying an iPod is always a huge mistake!

[Peter Cohen]

In reply to:

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You can buy a faster 7.200 rpm 500 GB drive for less!!!

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True, but you're buying a drive that uses a 3.5-inch mechanism which is bulkier and heavier.
This drive uses a 2.5 inch mechanism that's currently the largest-capacity drive in its form factor on the market today.
For some people, portability and size trump storage capacity. That's for whom this drive was created.

[Nobody]

Sure. That is exactly what I meant. The larger drives should cost more. More expensive for transportation, more weight of materials inside. Faster. More capacity. It is all more... I know, I know miniaturization is at a cost, but it seems to me that these smaller drives are far, far, far too expensive. Actually, I believe that smaller drives should cost less for all the above reasons. And I know it is not the case, but it should be. That was the point of my post.

[whitedog]

Youre only factoring in the apparent cost of materials for your comparison. In fact, its the cost to manufacture the thing that raises its price. That goes for the constituent components as well as the final device assembly. Smaller devices are harder to make and thus are more expensive. Its as simple as that.

[Nobody]

That is what they tell us. But the fact is that drives are made by robots. So, there should be no difference in cost between a 3.5 and a 2.5-inch drive (they are not that different in size, after all; we are not talking here about nanotechnology!!!), except the second being cheaper for using less materials... I do believe that the EXAGGERATED 2.5 prices are all ARTIFICIALLY INFLATED!!!

[whitedog]

Sorry, but youre clearly infatuated with a conspiracy theory. It seems your paranoia exceeds your knowledge of the engineering and manufacturing technologies that go into making computer hard drives. I wonder if youve ever even seen a standard size computer hard drive or the smaller laptop drives used in these minis? The difference in size is far greater than the 40% their width in inches suggests. And you totally ignore the competitive market forces that invariably force down the price of computer devices. Why would mini hard drives be an exception? Your belief is not proof; your reasoning does not fit the facts. As my aunt used to say to her husband when he got angry at trifles, what are you really mad about?

[moose_n_squirrel]

Of course it's artificially inflated. Duh. They are good capitalists who have determined that it is a price that their market will bear. They understand that portability is a value that can be charged extra for. (I could not bear the price, so I have an 2.5" 80GB portable I assembled.) Many people are willing to pay an "artificially inflated" price. The iPod's price is artificially inflated. Your car's price is artificially inflated, and more so with more expensive cars (you're not driving a Hyundai, are you?) Housing prices in popular areas are artificially inflated. The price of a Mac itself includes a huge margin. Value is almost never the sum of just materials plus manufacturing.
How would you justify the purchase of a wedding ring?

[Nobody]

Exactly. And then I suggest to the 3.5-inch manufacturers to charge four times as much, since, after all, people will pay for it! Their 2.5-inch prices are inflated and if people did not purchase them, then prices will be much lower. That was my point.

[moose_n_squirrel]

In reply to:

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And then I suggest to the 3.5-inch manufacturers to charge four times as much, since, after all, people will pay for it!

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Nice try, but that's not a given. The 3.5" drives do not have the same portability and power options, causing the market to not bear 4x the current price. The market may bear a certain amount above the certain price, because it's easy to find manufacturers selling the same mechanism in inexpensive cases and overpriced cases.

[minderbinder]

"ept the second being cheaper for using less materials... "
I'd bet the difference in cost of materials (and transportation) between a 2.5 and 3.5 drive is neglegible.
And since the 160 is a brand new drive (and only one manufacturer so far), supply is low, which is another reason the cost is higher. It's hard to pack capacity into a small drive. If it was easy, we'd be seeing 2.5 drives with the same capacity as 3.5's.