WTB: 4GB-ish IDE driveS

[Mercutio]

Ebay prices are insane, but I need to find 8 or so 4GB hard disks in the next few weeks.

There is no way that pull/used drives are worth $35 + shipping each, and that's the pricing I'm seeing.

[Mercutio]

Also, in my tour of auction sites today, I note that ubid.com is auctioning external Sony DRU500s for $200 with abuot 3 hours to go. Ubid isn't terribly high traffic, and there's a decent chance to get one for under $250...

[blakerwry]

heh, i bought a 4gb seagate with the sea-bra... $~25-30 if i remember right.... it's hard to find the bastards cheap on ebay...

On the otherhand, I bought 2 slot load CD-ROM drives in new condition for $5 each after shipping.

If I ahd any spares or knew where to get them I'd tell you. Perhaps you can look locally.

May I ask what kind of project you're involved in?

[blakerwry]

if you needed <1gb drives I could check the computer swap and shop.. they got rid of alot of their inventory but I would think they still have alot of older drives.

[Howell]

Ebay prices are insane, but I need to find 8 or so 4GB hard disks in the next few weeks.

There is no way that pull/used drives are worth $35 + shipping each, and that's the pricing I'm seeing.

Do they need to be in perfect working order or just usable?

[Mercutio]

The project is that I need a bunch of drives that work when I want to use them for my "classroom stuff". That means installing OSes, teaching people fdisk, using them as "hot spares" in case a classroom drive dies.

So yes, having drives that work perfectly is a good thing. ;)

I've got a small collection of 4.3GB drives I salvaged from some machines that I scrapped, and I have some smaller drives in the "less than perfect" category, but I'd like to get enough good ones that I don't have to wipe out a preloaded Win2000 drive so some slob can play with FORMAT.

[Howell]

The deal is I have some drives that work fine. And I have at least one (that I am using as a boot drive) that makes funny noises but seems to work fine.

[jtr1962]

Ebay prices are insane, but I need to find 8 or so 4GB hard disks in the next few weeks.

There is no way that pull/used drives are worth $35 + shipping each, and that's the pricing I'm seeing.

No kidding. $5 each would be more like it being that you can buy new drives for less than $1/GB, and a drive that old might not have much usable life left. I'm amazed there's that many people willing to pay those kinds of prices. I used to like eBay but lately it's been mostly a collection of overpriced junk although there are occasional bargains if you hunt around.

[blakerwry]

Ebay prices are insane, but I need to find 8 or so 4GB hard disks in the next few weeks.

There is no way that pull/used drives are worth $35 + shipping each, and that's the pricing I'm seeing.

No kidding. $5 each would be more like it being that you can buy new drives for less than $1/GB, and a drive that old might not have much usable life left. I'm amazed there's that many people willing to pay those kinds of prices. I used to like eBay but lately it's been mostly a collection of overpriced junk although there are occasional bargains if you hunt around.

I'd say that 10-15 apiece w/ $5-8 shipping (assuming proper shipping)... I'd pay $20 for a 4gb, $25 for a 10gb, $30 for a 15gb drive if I needed one.

Unfortunately what you usually get off ebay is a $20 4gb drive with $10 shipping that is blatently improper.