[Beowulf] Consumer vs. Enterprise Hard Drives in Clusters

[Gus Correa]

Greg Lindahl wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 05:35:06PM -0800, Jon Forrest wrote:
> 
>> An even wiser man once told me that Seagate 1TB drives
>> aren't weird stuff. They're the same no matter where you
>> buy them. In other words, they're commodity drives.
> 
> So you think newegg's customers buy a lot of Enterprise drives?
> Things that you don't sell much of are weird, and your pricing
> won't necessarily be competitive for them.
> 
> Now I don't know if newegg is charging a fair price or not, but
> I would not depend on that single data point to determine the
> price difference.
> 
> -- greg
> 
> 
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John, Greg, list

Just for comparison.

1) Prices at CDW:

(consumer) ST31000333AS -$119.99
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1540009&enkwrd=ALLPROD%3aST31000333AS

(enterprise) ST31000340NS - $173.99
(enterprise) ST31000340NS bulk, pack of 20 - $5,681.99 ($284.10/drive!!!)

http://www.cdw.com/shop/search/results.aspx?key=ST31000340NS&searchscope=All&sr=1&Find+it.x=0&Find+it.y=0

***

2) Best prices on PriceGrabber (a few minutes ago):

(consumer) ST31000333AS (Lagoom.com): $106.99
(enterprise) ST31000340NS (Tech4Less) : $155.19
(enterprise) ST31000340NS bulk, pack of 20 (NextWareHouse): $3570.80 
($178.54/drive!).

***

It is weird that the bulk price is always higher.

Any other suggestions of specific vendors
that may have better prices of enterprise (or consumer)
class drives, in bulk or not?

Thanks,
Gus Correa