Craigslist 'Deals'

[crokett]

Is it me or are people dreaming, at least for computer equipment? I am looking for a SATA hard drive for the web server/NAS box I am building. I see two used 500GB drives in my area advertised for 60 and 70 dollars. Meanwhile, Tiger Direct has a new 750GB for the same price and a 500GB for a few bucks less. than 60.00

I sent an email to both pointing this out and offering 50. Will see what happens.

[jussi]

Yah I'm guessing they got it a year or so ago and selling it for half or so of what they paid for it. Either they don't know or don't care that prices have come down dramatically. You can find a 1TB for $99 in many places. For a little more you could just get an external with an Ethernet port. If you have computer shows near you check those places out. I just got a WD 32mb cache 750g for $70. One cool thing I saw last month was an enclosure that can connect directly to a TV and play different video files.

[poolhound]

Jussi is right, storage prices have continued to drop. I picked up a 1TB exteranl drive for $100 a couple of months ago.

Even best buy, whose prices are usually terrible has a 500gb SATA for $80 new.

I would steer clear of used drives unless they are dirt cheap and even then not if you care about your data.

[Mr__Bill]

I never had good luck with used drives. There is software that will read the diagnostics stored on the drive. I would certainly look at that before I spent even 50 bucks. But them I am cheap. It will tell you how many hours, how many start up sector failures and all that stuff. Gives you an idea at least of about how long till failure.

good luck

Bill.

[jziegler]

Yah I'm guessing they got it a year or so ago and selling it for half or so of what they paid for it. Either they don't know or don't care that prices have come down dramatically. You can find a 1TB for $99 in many places. For a little more you could just get an external with an Ethernet port. If you have computer shows near you check those places out. I just got a WD 32mb cache 750g for $70. One cool thing I saw last month was an enclosure that can connect directly to a TV and play different video files.

I got a WD external 1TB from Newegg.com for $110 recently. I went to a computer show the same weekend I ordered, and the prices there were much higher than web prices. Computer shows just aren't what they once were. Web pricing really is better now.

But those craigslist prices are just crazy. Higher than new prices for a used drive?

Jim

[RyFitz13]

I used to work in a second hand shop, mostly buying and selling computers, and this kind of thing came up all the time. People would come in with their 3 year old computer, telling me "Well, I paid $2000 for it, so I'd like to get that much back." I'd have to explain to them I couldn't even sell the thing, at that point, for half that much, so they'd ask for $1000. It usually ended with the person walking out the door, really torked off at me. Then coming back a few days later and taking a couple hundred bucks when they realized they couldn't sell the thing anywhere for what they thought they would get...