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Toshiba P300, 3.5" HDD 3TB 7200rpm 64MB Hard Drive $130.15 Delivered @ Amazon AU

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Since it seems like Camelcamelcamel Australia doesn't have any data to determine whether this is a bargain or not,
I went to Camelcamelcamel USA to find some sort of guidance with pricing for this product, and it seems like this product has been down to $81 USD on Sep 21 2019, from a third party seller.

According to quick googling, this was the exchange rate on 21/09/2019:
1 USD to AUD = 1.4773 on 21/09/2019

So:
81USD x 1.4773 = $119.6613AUD
+10% Aussie tax = $131.62743AUD

Or more recently, it was $86.21USD on 04/03/2020, which is $143.2042931AUD with the exchange rate on the respective date and 10% OzTax applied.
And $91.67USD on 01/10/2020, which is $140.3247692AUD.

So I figured this price is worth mentioning. Especially because these were completely in stock yesterday, and the day before, but now it's down to "Only 5 left in stock (more on the way)." apparently. So it looks like a few people are buying. Since there is more on the way, I figured this isn't a "limited stock forum post" either.

Anyways here are the specs:
Hard Drive Rotational Speed 7200 RPM
Cache size 64 MB
3 TB Storage

Some Hard drive failure rate statistics during 2020 from Backblaze: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-fo…
The Toshiba P300 isn't listed in Backblaze's stats, so take the above information with a grain of salt.

*Do note that this P300 is different to the old version, with the bright red sticker like this one:
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41IQmtK7sTL…

I did have a look at the Toshiba X300 series with the 128 MB cache, but I see way too many comments from many different users claiming that their X300's are the "loudest hard disk drive they have ever bought", which isn't something I was looking for. But if you are someone who doesn't mind noise, they may be a good option.

Price History at C CamelCamelCamel.

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closed Comments

  • +1

    Is that some sort of high performance drive? If you're just after basic storage then you can't beat shucking a 4tb Seagate Desktop Expansion drive for $109 from bing Lee / jb hifi / officeworks etc.

    • "Given two identically designed hard drives with the same areal densities, a 7,200 RPM drive will deliver data about 33% faster than the 5,400 RPM drive."

      Personally, I'm just tired of Windows explorer freezing up those noticeable few milliseconds when opening up folders, and sometimes with videos with only a couple of GB's. Hoping that a 7200rpm drive will change that. Maybe it won't, but after seeing lots of reviews I've decided to bite the bullet.

      If you just want backup storage that you will never open and only ever use when your main storage goes down, then yeah, a 5400rpm drive from shucking is most likely the better option.

      • +2

        A 7200rpm drive won't affect that at all - you need an SSD.

        • Dang, do you/did you use a 7200rpm drive for media files?

          I see lots of people making contrary arguments like:
          "The 1TB WD blue drive at 7200rpm is sort of, as far as western digital's offerings; the go-to for gaming storage we would recommend archiving your games there rather than a 5400 rpm drive at a higher capacity because the speed difference is noticeable particularly with certain types of media."

          "we generally would not recommend [the 5400rpm drive] for gaming storage, or for any type of media that needs to be accessed more quickly. Now for long term archival storage it (the 5400rpm drive) is just fine."

          -Gamers Nexus, 2017
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0GIAvOdARY

          But I guess I'll just have to see it for myself. Worst case scenario the 7200rpm is just as bad as the 5400rpm and I return it within the 30 day window.

          • +1

            @Outsider: I've also heard that 7200rpm drives are more prone to failure than a 5400rpm drive, simply because of the fact that they spin faster… So I guess it's a tradeoff

            • @Jopgun: I mean, like I said:

              If you just want backup storage… then yeah, a 5400rpm drive from shucking is most likely the better option.

              If you are actually going to have the drive in your PC, and you open the folders and files inside them from time to time, then insert Gamers Nexus quote here.

          • @Outsider: I'm using the stock 1TB 11 year old 7200 platter drive in my 2010 iMac to stream my iTunes content to my apple tv via home sharing over a 4 year old Telstra gateway, music and 1080p movies load instantly with no buffering or lag.
            I do however use a SSD as my boot drive.
            This old iMac runs like a dream ))

          • @Outsider: I had a 7200RPM drive for my D: drive and it had 2 major flaws: it would go into 'sleep' mode and take 2 seconds to spin up, and it has seek time which is definitely noticeable.

            After it died and I replaced it with an SSD, the difference was night and day, and not just when using that drive - the whole computer ran faster without the spinning rust.

            • @Nukkels: Cheers for everyone's input!

              Although the sleep mode can probably be fixed with a setting in Windows, it's interesting to see firm belief that a HDD connected at all (even if it has nothing to do with the boot drive) will cause your entire system to slow down even if you aren't accessing anything on the HDD.

              Never heard of anything like that before but I guess a bit more googling wouldn't hurt!

              • @Outsider: In my case, I couldn't even open windows settings after removing the dead HDD. As soon as I installed the new SSD, settings would open normally.

                My own situation may be anecdotal, but I'm also an IT professional and can categorically say that a HDD is always the slowest component in any computer. If you don't access it often, a 7200RPM HDD is a good bang for buck storage option (heck, it's what I chose for my own PC), but you will definitely notice that it's still a HDD when opening folders and running apps.

                • @Nukkels: Hmm… Now I really have no idea what happened to your system. But there were a couple of posts about a newly installed HDD slowing down an entire system with an SSD as its boot drive during 2018
                  Like here: https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Startup-slowdown-aft…
                  and here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10…

                  But they were both resolved with a simple BIOS reset to default. Quick googling didn't really bring anything similar after that (during 2019~2021). Hopefully I used the right search tags.

                  Oh no… The last time I had a conversation with a self proclaimed IT professional on Ozbargain, the guy claimed that NVME drives are the solution to systems with low RAM…

                  • -1

                    @Outsider: … The fastest NVMe drives are upto 3-4GB/s now. I haven't tried it, but I imagine when used for pagefile they'll work very nicely.
                    So he was probably right…

                    • -1

                      @Nom: Just in case you aren't joking, ddr4 memory generally runs at around 20~25GB/s. And the speeds you think NVME drives always run at are SEQUENTIAL read and write, not random.

                      The solution to not enough ram is to get more ram as of now. NVME page filing is no where near the speed/flexibility/durability of ram. Even just 5 minutes of Google will give you those answers.
                      So he was completely wrong…

                      • +1

                        @Outsider: Yes, we're well aware that RAM is significantly faster than SSD storage.

                        Nobody is suggesting you buy a faster storage drive instead of additional memory.

                        The part you're missing is that your pagefile doesn't need to operate at the speed of your RAM - it simply needs to be fast enough for the experience to be OK. And we're probably almost there now that it's only a single order of magnitude slower - this is by far the smallest performance gap we've ever had between volatile and none-volatile storage.

                        You've also missed the fact that many modern laptops come with soldered RAM - for a large number of machines, you can't add additional memory !

                        • @Nom:

                          Nobody is suggesting you buy a faster storage drive instead of additional memory.

                          Except that is exactly the discussion that was at hand. If you agree that NVME's are NOT the solution to systems with low RAM then you didn't need to say anything. -But you are claiming that NVME's are "up to 3-4GB/s" (completely forgetting/ignoring those numbers are achieved with sequential read/write) and they'll "work very nicely."

                          No. No it won't work "very nicely". A system with RAM deficiency needs more RAM, end of story. -This was always my point, and you are seemingly trying to bend it into something else now that you have lost to 5 minutes of googling.

                          You've also missed the fact that many modern laptops come with soldered RAM - for a large number of machines, you can't add additional memory !

                          Now you are going really off topic and wasting my time. If a manufacturer decides to rear end their customers with blatant limitations that only cause inconvenience to consumers with their products, and customers still make the extremely poor decision to purchase and get rear ended from that company anyways, NVME's are still not "the solution" to that problem. The true solution would be for the customers to know when to avoid manufacturers that get their heads stuck up their holes, and have them produce products that don't run into RAM deficiency in the first place, or allow RAM customisation so customers can avoid those problems.

                          Bye.

                          • @Outsider:

                            If a manufacturer decides to rear end their customers with blatant limitations that only cause inconvenience to consumers with their products, and customers still make the extremely poor decision to purchase and get rear ended from that company anyways, NVME's are still not "the solution" to that problem. The true solution would be for the customers to know when to avoid manufacturers that get their heads stuck up their holes, and have them produce products that don't run into RAM deficiency in the first place, or allow RAM customisation so customers can avoid those problems.

                            LOL.

                            I was happy to have a technical discussion, but I see you've moved along to arguing against the market.

                            Laters.

      • If you're looking for responsiveness then forget about mechanical drives - you need an SSD.

  • +1

    Off the topic but seeing the picture makes me think of Quantum Fireball…

    • Showing your age a bit there…

  • Speaking of Toshiba drives on Amazon - has anyone shucked one of their portable 'canvio advance'drives?: https://www.amazon.com.au/Toshiba-Canvio-Advance-Portable-Ex… … Seems like a great source of a 4TB drive if they're a standard CMR model, no?

    Edit: Whoops. That's a 2.5" model.

    • Not sure about that particular drive, but some 2.5" externals have the USB connectors soldered directly to the drive where the SATA plug would usually go … shucking these kind of drives just leaves you with a USB drive without the plastic housing.

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