I have no idea whether this is a good deal or not, but I point it out here just in case it is. I bought one (it is a Buy-It-Now Dutch auction with 49 of them for sale) without doing a lot of price research because I need it soon more than I need it cheap. My <ab>used 18 GB drive is finally failing -- some of those sub-zero (Fahrenheit) startups may have contributed.

The drives are IBM Travelstars, and come with a three year factory warranty for $124.95 plus $10 shipping.

If I dramatically overpaid for this drive and got totally taken advantage of -- please don't tell me. Awww, go ahead. I can take it!

tanstaafl.

http://www.googlegear.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=100409

Not too overpriced

Well I just got a 40G IBM in Singapore for S$215 = US$122 and that was the cheapest I could find anywhere including a lot of US sites that wouldn't ship internationally anyway. I would say that this is a good price.

40Gb is sweet spot on laptop drives at the moment. 60Gb are way more than 50% more expensive.

Not too overpriced

I see that. Makes me feel better.

Aren't the Hitachi drives the ones that have had cold startup problems in our empegs?

tanstaafl.

I don't know I think they say hitachi because they now make the travelstar's.

Any ideas as to how much would used 30's fetch ?

I would check ebay.

I got a brand new 60GB travelstar on Ebay for £100. I don't know if i paid over the odds or not, but I'm happy

That sounds like a pretty good deal to me. That's about US$160. A lot of sellers won't sell international though making it hard to get the drives in Australia. For reference the cheapest I could get a 40Gb was $148.

I am in the market for a 40G soon. Thanks for the tipoffs guys

If you can hold off, you might want to wait until the 80s come out. That will push the price points of the smaller drives further down. They were supposed to be in the retail channels in January, but I guess the merger with Hitachi slowed them down a bit. I keep watching...

My local supplier has 60GB fujitsu drives for C$302, and 40GB fujitsu for C$199. Multiply by 0.65 for US$ approximations.

Cheers

Come on 80s, come on 80s!!!

I'm waiting on another drive so I can have a full backup of my mp3 collection and so I can pull my 10 gig drive out and use it as a mini USB drive that I can lug between work, home and friend's houses to move larger files.

Of course the new desktop is putting a hold on those plans.

Just wanted to mention that I had a terrible experience with Googlegear and trying to get them to do what they said they were going to do. Without going into boring details, suffice to say I'm not ever going to buy from them again...

Just my opinion, but maybe it will save someone else from some pain.

I'm sure that someone out there has had a positive experience with them too...

- Jon

Thats good to know I was thinking about getting some memory from them

I've been in contact with the guy selling these drives (40 GB IBM Travelstar), and he would be happy to sell them directly (not through ebay) to anybody on the bbs that wants one. You can reach him at: [email protected]

Price is $124.95 plus $10 shipping

tanstaafl.

Can he get 60GB drives?

Can he get 60GB drives?

No.

He has a batch of 40 GB drives that he apparently got on some closeout deal, but no access to larger drives.

tanstaafl.

I also had problems with googlegear. Since then, I haven't even thought of using them again.