Decent 360/PS3 article in EDN's "Voice of the Engineer"

[bobthebub]

Ok. So why have 300gb HDD's droped sp drastically in price over the last couple years?

Scoob, even today, 300gb 3.5" hard drives are newer tech than the 360 HD, 300Gb drives have dropped in price because they are no longer "top" capacity so don't merit a premium, they are cheaper to make as costs have been sunk and platter density increases mean there are fewe components - this point has been made above ad nauseum.

How come, every new type of HDD (external standalone units, 2.5" laptop units, etc) starts out expensive when they first launche then drop in price?

for the reasons above that have been made more eloquently previously in this thread.

According to you guys, a new type of HDD launches at a set price, and never ever drops. It has an absolutely flat pricing curve, from my experience buying parts for my PC's, that's just plain false. They do start out at a premium, and drop over the course of a few years...

Nope... nobody is saying that. The 360 HD is pretty much the smallest capacity 2.5" hd available today - IT'S ALREADY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PRICE CURVE! a modicum of cheap newish tech has been applied in that SATA 2.5" drives are rare but that's it.

 

[Tahir2]

Nothing drops forever..

There are inherit fixed costs for materials and labour that once all the R&D costs are accounted for still exist.

So BOM for a Hard Drive could include:

Factory/inventory/labour/shipping costs
Building materials
Maintenance and repair (drives that fail at factory or after being shipped)

Costs money.... none of the above is for free and will always cost and is not likely to shift in price very much. This is one of the reasons you do not see 4GB 3.5" hard drives being sold for $4 on the open market for instance.

But we all know this so why state the obvious? Because some people do not use common sense here it seems

 

[aaronspink]

So why do top-end, or enw drives always start out expensive, then drop in price? R&D I suppose right?

Looks at the seagate momentus , 40GB external 2.5" HDD. Price is $100-130 for 40gb
http://www.shopbot.com.au/p-1806-44354.html

because the market will pay? Why sell it for a dollar when you can get 10. Microsoft is putting in a secured order for 20-40 million drives over 5 years and getting a volume price.

As far as I can see there's every reason to expect the price of the external SATA 2.5" drives is still on the highside, and will decline over the next couple years.

External doesn't enter into the picutre. Only look at internal drive pricing. All an external drive is, is an internal drive in some fancy plastic.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[aaronspink]

utilize larger platter densities and make bigger drives for the same price. Even assuming that MS can build these drives for $25 (which I'm somewhat sceptical of in the first place!), they don't really have any room to decrease manufacturing costs. As others have said, it may even be that costs will go up as manufacturers phase out the parts that go into this specific drive.
Nite_Hawk

$25 is certainly doable. Media yield rates won't be an issue. So your talking about the raw mechanicals really as the price factor. While I don't every see them going under $20, <$30 is somewhat reasonable.

And why to people talk about phasing out of parts? MS will simple use the 2.5" form factor drive in this $20-$30 price band that they can get.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[aaronspink]

So why do you assume that these external 2.5" Sata HDD have reached this 'threshhold'?

Erroneous Fact Alert (EFA)... There are NO, NEVER HAVE BEEN, NEVER WILL BE, external HDD. There are only internal HDDs in fancy expensive plastic. They make more money off the plastic than they do the actual drive.

Aaron Spink

 

[aaronspink]

Ok. So why have 300gb HDD's droped sp drastically in price over the last couple years?

Media yield rates and number of platters.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

 

[rabidrabbit]

Could the PS3 be able to accept any 2,5" HDD you buy from any store, it's internal and doesn't need no casing by the console manufacturer. So you'd be able to shop freely without having to buy a Sony branded PS3 HDD tat would cost more.

The software for the HDD (the rumoured Linux OS, demos, trailers, music samples...) could come bundled with every PS3, or be sold separately.

IMO that would make more sense (for consumer) than having to buy a HDD with readily installled Sony software from Sony.

Bundling the PS3 with a disc with attractive content only installable and viewable on a HDD would also be a lure to get people buy a HDD for PS3.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Could the PS3 be able to accept any 2,5" HDD you buy from any store, it's internal and doesn't need no casing by the console manufacturer. So you'd be able to shop freely without having to buy a Sony branded PS3 HDD tat would cost more.

I'm sure they could do that, but why would they? The console manufacturers have always attempted to extract a significant profit on the peripherals, I expect that to continue.

The software for the HDD (the rumoured Linux OS, demos, trailers, music samples...) could come bundled with every PS3, or be sold separately.

IMO that would make more sense (for consumer) than having to buy a HDD with readily installled Sony software from Sony.

Bundling the PS3 with a disc with attractive content only installable and viewable on a HDD would also be a lure to get people buy a HDD for PS3.

It would make more sense for the consumer, but I don't see how it would make more sense for sony.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

$25 is certainly doable. Media yield rates won't be an issue. So your talking about the raw mechanicals really as the price factor. While I don't every see them going under $20, <$30 is somewhat reasonable.

And why to people talk about phasing out of parts? MS will simple use the 2.5" form factor drive in this $20-$30 price band that they can get.

Aaron Spink
speaking for myself inc.

<shrug> $25 seems low, but I haven't looked into it that closely. $30 would be more realistic imho. Still, it's the cost reduction more than anything which seems like wishful thinking.

Nite_Hawk