WD Raptor 150 gig WD1500ADFD $195 (after $30 rebate) shipped newegg

[Devistater]

This is a compliation of prices for the Western Digital Raptor 150 gig drive. Its a SATA 10k RPM drive, 16 meg cache, model #WD1500ADFD

Cliff Notes: Pick the price you want to pay from the vendor you want to buy from. Rebates are noted so rebate haters can pick ones without, and locations are noted so people can determine which ones may charge tax.


~$229 shipped Zipzoomfly (free shipping, located in CA)
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101257

~$250 shipped Monarch ($247 + $3 shipping, Located in Georgia) OOS I think, since they aren't showing this product in a search.
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant...=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=150351

~$240 shipped clubIT ($234 + $6 shipping, located in CA)
http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=A3494857

~$227 shipped mwave ($222 + $6-$8 shipping, located in CA)
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=AA41460

~$195 shipped AR newegg ($225 -$30 rebate + Free shipping, located in CA) Rebate expires Oct 29th, Rebate can be used on two drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136012

~$240 or $230 shipped directron ($232 + $6-$12 shipping depending on location there's also a $10 off $200 coupon floating around, located in Texas)
http://store.yahoo.com/directron/wd1500adfd.html

The dell deal is now dead, Price has since been raised to $250 (previously it was as low as about $150 with coupon, etc).

note: there are NO lower legit prices for a new drive on froogle (the ones that seem lower are websites from UK listing prices in pounds, which once you try a currency converter are very much more than the USA prices), or they are for refurbished drives. On pricewatch theres one slightly lower price of $215 shipped, but its from a questionable source, and its discussed below if you are interested. I dont think its worth saving $5 over the current ZZF price of $220 shipped personally.


If you want the retail package (retail includes cable and screws, same warranty as OEM):
~$296 shipped newegg ($290 +$6 shipping, located in CA)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136034
~$294 shipped mwave ($287 + $6-$8 shipping, located in CA)
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec.hmx?scriteria=3955909

The Raptor-X 150 gig is the same thing, but with a window (contrary to rumors, it doesn't have differing firmware).
This is the only retail hdd sold with a window. They also put the drive sticker on the bottom which is cool. Here's a pic:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/images/article/inline/2467-vertical.jpg
$200 AR shipped at newegg ($230 + Free shipping -$30 MIR ) Rebate expires Oct 29, good for up to 2 drives.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136011

~$243 shipped at Monarch ($240 + $3 shipping
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant...=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=150353

Retail package of the Raptor X 150 gig
~$336 shipped at newegg ($330 + $6 shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822136035

The 150 gig Raptor is the fastest non scsi HDD out there. It peaks at nearly 90 meg/s sustained throughput, a large jump from the previous max of about 72 meg/s which was held by the raptor 74g version.
Specification page:
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=189&Language=en
It has 4.6ms seek time
It's 10,000 RPM (the raptors are the only non scsi drives with RPM higher than 7200).
It has 16 megs of cache
It has NCQ (unless you are a multi user--this doesn't include heavy single usage-- then this should probably stay off, it tends to decrease performance)
It has 2 platters, the same as the 74gig raptor (they increased the platter density)
24 hours of factory burn in
Rated 1.2 million hours MTBF (for the non windowed version)
WD's 5 year warranty
The noise levels are almost exactly what the 74gig raptor was. Middle of the pack when compared to SATA drives.
Power comsumption is almost the same when its seeking as the 74gig raptor, about 12 watts.
It is equipped with FDB
Note that while the drive is SATA I, it doesn't seem to hold it back. They've also moved to a native SATA design, earlier raptors like the 74gig had a bridge design.
It also supports TLER (a feature for RAID 1 and higher, defaults to off)

It will probably remain the fastest non scsi drive for some time. None of the other hdd manufactures want to cut into thier expensive SCSI business, but WD doesn't sell scsi drives anymore.
Its fairly expensive at nearly $2 a gig, but the 74gig raptor is about the same per gig. Its a good OS drive or gaming drive, and good RAID drive, but if you just want lots of space to store your mp3 or home movie collection, I suggest finding a hdd sale of 20-30 cents per gig and grabbing a 200+ gig drive.

Reviews:
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD1500ADFD_1.html
Note that storeagereview finally added some game testing to their benchmarks. The direct link to game testing is:
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD1500ADFD_5.html
It is top of the charts vs other SATA drives. It also beats out some 15k RPM SCSI drives in games!
a few NCQ on vs off tests in games and showing multiple users:
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200601/WD1500ADFD_8.html

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2690&p=1
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=230&type=expert
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/03/21/review_western_digital_raptor_x/
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/882/1/page_1_introduction/index.html
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1926891,00.asp
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/02/06/wd1500ad_raptor_xtends_performance_lead/
This review from hothardware has some RAID 0 tests. They get burst rates of about 137 meg/s from a single raptor 150gig and about 226 meg/s from two of them. Also it has some quake 4 level load time tests, you save about 5 seconds (out of 38 seconds) going to a RAID 0.
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=776&cid=4

This is a GREAT review. And its an AT one Its actually a review of the new 750 gig 7200.10 seagate with PMR technology (the next great thing in hdd tech). It compares the latest SATA II drive with PMR (which should greatly enhance data transfers) technology and includes a Raptor 150 gig in the test results. They also do a RAID 0 setup of two of the 750 gig drives (making a 1.5 TB raid array!!). Whats really interesting though, and impressive to me, is that the Raptor 150 gig is at or near the top of the results in almost all benches. The raid setup does take some benches, but notice especially the game results. The Raptor 150g beats the raid 0 setup for playing and loading on almost all the games. Last half of page 9 and first half of page 10 of this review are where the game results are.

The WD Raptor continues its pattern of being the best available drive for the game enthusiast, although with a limited storage capacity it is certainly an expensive proposition for the general desktop user who typically will sacrifice speed for storage. RAID 0 finally shows up to the party and offers a 7% improvement in the Battlefield 2 scores but otherwise does not offer any tangible benefits, and it even posts slower load times in the Oblivion and Half Life 2 benchmarks.

Also note on page 2 of the review it mentions that the seagate 750 gig drive has a switch that goes between SATA I mode and SATA II mode on the seagate drive. They mention that while it offers some theoretical burst mode improvements in the synthetic results, the real life benches show NO CHANGE. This means that as I've been saying, so far SATA II is mostly a marketing thing and doesn't YET offer much real world performance benifits in terms of SATA II interface on a hdd (note that for raid, a SATA II hdd controller is probably important since the transfer rates of multiple hdds may be high enough to need it. As well, its a good idea to get SATA II on the mobo/controller anyway because it WILL be needed in the future. The 150g raptor is already running close to the maximum transfer rates of SATA I interface). So, for people who are saying that the raptor 150g being SATA I means its slower or not worth buying, thats not the case.
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2760&p=1

 

[wallsfd949]

Thanks for all the great linkage OP!

I have to wonder if this is truly worth the cost. Here is why.. The drive is currently $275 @ newegg.com. I can get the fastest hardware (big difference) raid controller on the market 3ware 9550sx and 3 x 250GB SATA disks w/NCQ for $50 more than the cost of 2 of the raptors. The 3 disks will work in RAID5 to provide redundancy and 500GB of usable space. If you RAID'd the Raptors for redundancy, you'd only have 150GB of usable space for almost the same price.

I have yet to benchmark my 9550SX-8 but the 3ware site claims 800MB/sec RAID 5 reads and 380MB/sec RAID 5 writes. I can't confirm the speeds, but I can say that the card with the Maxtor disks is blazing fast.

This is not a thread crap - your links are great!, but this is more of a question/discussion about the product and is it really worth the high cost or is it just a lot of hype. I work in a DC and know how often we replace disks therefore I don't run a box that has info I can't lose w/out redundancy - thus I'd need 2 disks at a minimum.

I think there is a lot of hype from WD on these disks and they appear to think very highly of their products by the high cost when you can have (IMO) a better setup for ~ the same cost.

Any thoughts?

 

[BadThad]

Good post!

 

[Devistater]

wallsfd949:
Its the same question with SCSI. It just depends on your needs.
Raptors, of 36, 74, or 150gig flavor all tend to run around $2 a gig. You can find normal SATA or IDE drives ranging from 20 cents to 30 cents a gig if you wait for a decent sale.
SCSI 15k hdds are even more expensive than raptors, and in a DC file server, they will perform better under a multiple simultaneous user access pattern..
If redundancy is your top priority, you'll probably be able to sacrifice a bit of speed to get it.

The numbers you are quoting for the 3ware 9550sx are theoretical maximums. Just like SATA I is 150 meg/s and SATA 3g is 300 meg/s. Nothing is even close to those kinda numbers in sustained throughput.
As I mentioned above, the fastest non scsi hard drive on the planet is the raptor 150 gig and it peaks at about 90 meg/s sustained throughput of reads. Raid two of those in a stripe and the maximum you will get is still less than 180 meg/s sustained throughput. This is a far cry from this raid's card theroetical maximum of 800 meg/s reads in RAID 5. In other words, the card is powerful enough to more than handle any drives now and in the future. It sounds like its powerful enough that the RAID 5 hardware parity XOR calculations shouldn't slow down hdd transfer rates that much.

One other note about that card, its PCI-X which is NOT pci-express. You'll need a special motherboard to use it. So dont forget to add in something between $250 and $1,250 to the price you were thinking of.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...2&description=64bit+pci+133mhz&Ntk=all
Theres a list of motherboards with 64 bit pci-x 133 mhz slots. They start at about $250 and go up to about $1,250 on newegg.

Now that I think about it, that 800 meg/s read from the card sounds like the pci-x 64 bit 133 mhz maximum. The 64 bit interface should be able to do at least 6 bytes at a time through it (8 bits in a byte normally, but there's probably 1 or 2 for parity, on SATA drives I know its a 10 bit read to the interface). So at 133 mhz, thats 133mhz times 6 bytes, which equals 798 meg/s. Pretty close to the maximum they quote eh? They are basically quoting a mostly meaningless interface maximum, just like quoting the 3g of the new SATA. But it sure sounds impressive

The hdd you link too, a diamondmax 10 drive with 16 meg cache is reviewed here (the maxline III basically):
http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200410/200410087B300S0-2_2.html
It peaks at less than 66 meg/s sustained throughput. Thats a pretty significant differance from the raptor.

And of course the raptor is the only SATA drive to have higher RPM than 7200 (it has 10,000 RPM)

You can check the review from storagereview site. The raptor 150gig compares fairly decently with the 15k RPM SCSI drives in several benchmarks. This is what a 15k SCSI drive normallly costs:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...4+1035507779&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=14
$7.33 per gig ($1,100 for a 150 gig 15k scsi heh), $5 per gig, etc. All priced much higher than the rapter per gig.

Its like the age old question, is that extra 10% increase in mhz in a CPU worth paying an extra 30% in price. Only the buyer can answer that. In some cases yes, some no.

Dont forget, that drive you linked to is also a 3 year warranty, not 5 year like the raptor stuff. Of course, most seagate stuff is 5 year now, so that may be a factor in choosing your brand etc.

 

[Parasitic]

Might wanna put directron on the list with that $10 off $200 coupon it comes out to be $269.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: Parasitic
Might wanna put directron on the list with that $10 off $200 coupon it comes out to be $269.

It is on the list, but they also were charging $9 shipping to ship to me. I'll edit it to mention the coupon.
Even with the coupon added into directron, ZZF and clubit are still cheaper, unless you live in CA

 

[heimlich]

Thanks this is very helpful. I don't know if it's apples and oranges, but I was impressed also in this comparison where it seemed the 74G raptor held up well against SATAII drives: http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=2454

It made me wonder why the SATAII drives seemed handicapped in some benchmarks.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: heimlich
It made me wonder why the SATAII drives seemed handicapped in some benchmarks.

They aren't. Its just that it is currently a mostly meaningless marketing checkmark for harddrives. It means nothing in terms of how it performs. You could have the crappiest slowest ata33 parts (like these these 6.4 gig hdds from '98 which hit OMG up to 10 meg/s) inside a hard drive on a bridge chip so it had the SATA 3g interface. It would be the slowest SATA drive ever, but by golly it would be SATA 3g! And it works. I've seen many posts from people who refuse to buy anything other than SATA 3g (aka SATA II).

I would still reccomend it for the motherboard/controller though. Because it may very well need that kinda bandwidth for raid setups, or for future hard drives. I'm fairly certain that the next generation of raptor in a couple years will require it, for burst transfers from cache if nothing else. The 90 meg/s maximum sustained of the 150 gig raptor is uncomfortably close to SATA I spec of 150 meg/s.

Its kinda like how with IDE hard drives, some manufactures still make and sell ATA100 drives, despite the ATA133 standard being availible.

Another real world example of a similar situation:
When creative released the audigy 1, they had all over the box and advertising that it was capable of 96 khz and 24 bit recording. Well turns out that the only part capable of that was a codec chip. The pipe looked like this: ----===-----
It couldn't actually play or record anything in 24 bit or 96khz. It didn't matter that the pipe was larger in the middle. So they had a class action lawsuit filed against them. Then they came out with the audigy 2 which really COULD do 24 bit and 96khz recording.

With hdds, the pipe is like this ======-- where the last little part is where the actual drive hardware is working, it cant feed the big pipe of SATA II fast enough to actually need it. Yet. Hdds will improve though, and eventually the drive hardware will require that, for bursts in the near term future if nothing else.

What will happen though, is that as the newer drive model lines come out, they will all start having the SATA 3g spec. The newer models will have improved hardware. So you will eventually see SATA 3g drives all outperform the older model SATA I drives simply because of the improved technology "under the hood," since almost none of the newer drives will have the SATA I interface (they will migrate to SATA 3g for marketing reasons if nothing else).

 

[Devistater]

Bumping because there's been a fairly significant price drop at ZZF, and a rebate is on now for newegg.

 

[Topplayer]

THANKS OP good post

 

[miks23]

Is it just me or do you have to be a total sucker to buy the X (windowed) version. I wonder if Western Digital has really sold any significant number of these. When I first read about it I couldn't believe the price difference. $10 I could see but $60+ is just ridiculous.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: miks23
Is it just me or do you have to be a total sucker to buy the X (windowed) version. I wonder if Western Digital has really sold any significant number of these. When I first read about it I couldn't believe the price difference. $10 I could see but $60+ is just ridiculous.

Well I think keeping the $2 a gig price through 3 generations of product (what 5 years?) is pretty silly too. The 36 gig raptor runs around $75, the 74 gig raptor runs around $150 and the 150 gig raptor runs around $300ish.
(these are approximate prices, yes I know you can often find them for a bit less)

The ONLY alternative to the raptor X if you want a window on your hdd is doing it yourself. And cracking open a hdd in any non cleanroom enviromnent is risky for the hdd. I guess you could open up an old 10 gigger if you just wanted something for looks heh.

If WD is really using special materials for the window (and not just plexi) to maintain integretiy of the cover and keep the thermals the same (i.e. doesn't hold heat in) then it may very well be justified. The normal differance was around $50, and if you are already spending almost $300 on the fastest non scsi drive in the world with a very expensive price per gig, you probably have an extra $50 kicking around if you like hard drive windows.

On the other hand, maybe they know that people who want a clear hdd are willing to pay extra for it and they are taking advantage of people. Who knows.

Its like asking about clear cases, or modding computers. Its only asthetics sure, but there's a growing number of people into it who are tired of boring beige computers. I'm betting many people on AT have done at least something that could be considered modding only for looks.

And I've worked in a paint dept in a hardware store. OMG, people used to ask me about imperceptible differances in off white paint. Me, I'd just flip a coin. Something thats barely any shade differant... heh

 

[DidlySquat]

I OWNZZZZ this drive and it ROXXXX !

I wonder if the OP wants to make this an endless stickey-like thread (for which he is notorious for) with all this info rather than a hot deal thread like it supposed to be in the hot deals forums, which this is clearly NOT A HOT DEAL. Move it to hardware you tweet

 

[Capt Caveman]

OP - Great Post!!!

 

[Punisher007]

FYI the 74GB version is $130 After MIR at Newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144160

 

[DidlySquat]

This is the same price as what you could get since the drive was released. I paid about the same 2-3 months ago, so I wouldn't say this is a hot deal, it's just the regular price.

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
I OWNZZZZ this drive and it ROXXXX !

I wonder if the OP wants to make this an endless stickey-like thread (for which he is notorious for) with all this info rather than a hot deal thread like it supposed to be in the hot deals forums, which this is clearly NOT A HOT DEAL. Move it to hardware you tweet

No, I dont want this to get stickied. Let's see, a single bump by me in 10 days because of a price drop is an attempt to keep this at the top? haahhaahah

If I really wanted to try and keep this near the top, I would make 2 replies to your 2 posts in this thread, rather than combining them into 1 reply. I generally try to avoid having 2 replies in a row by myself, because its rude and most people who do so are just trying to increase post count.

So, if I'm notorious for this, name some of my other threads where I do this. I dont recall doing it for weekly hdd sales, although I enjoy when others do so. I can only recall one other example, the 3rd party firmware for linksys, but I dont generally go bumping that, I let others do so.
I can't even find that thread on a search lol its been so long since someone bumped it. I think its been most of a year since I even replied in that thread.

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
This is the same price as what you could get since the drive was released. I paid about the same 2-3 months ago, so I wouldn't say this is a hot deal, it's just the regular price.

I dont think so.
The very first drives availible after release were direct from WD, and they certainly weren't anywhere close to $260. Even today its still $290 from there (and that probably doens't include shipping) And I dont recall even the initial retail prices from other online places at near $260, I recall more like $280 or $290.

And the AT hot deal posts on the drive seem to back this up (including one from you in the timeframe you mentioned).

Personally I think that this drive at around $260 is a hot deal. I searched for raptor on the hot deals forum before I posted this thread, and before I bumped it, and I didn't notice any prices lower. I would say a lower price than any thats been previously posted on AT is a hot deal (note: I dont count the post about the one missing a warranty).

To me, one of the definitions of a hot deal, is a lower price than has been posted before for an item. Like for instance, the price of about $650 for the 24" dell LCD is about the normal lowest new retail price I've seen. If I found it for $550 or $600 new, I dont think anyone would argue it wasn't a hot deal.

I just searched for raptor again in hot deals. I see two posts about $282, one about $283, and one about $281 (title was $269 but the OP said shipping was $12).

If you really found the same $260ish 2-3 months ago, why didn't you post about it here in hot deals? Since it was lower than the prices that were here. Either you bought one on ebay, bought one without a warranty, or didn't buy it for a $260ish price. Or the other explanation is that you didn't give back to the AT community when you found a better price.

Interestingly enough, you did make a HD post about it.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=40&threadid=1800568

And interestingly enough, after 2 mins of your orignal post you replied with:

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
pwned ! I already own this drive

Talk about self bumping, you cant even let 2 mins go by dropping from the top post?

But that wasn't enough, you replied again later that same day:

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
bump

And the next day:

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
pwned

And two days later:

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
pwned !

So, is the reason you think you see this behavior in others is because you do it yourself?
Out of 6 posts in your HD thread by you (including your OP), I just quoted 4 of them.

Why were you posting and bumping a thread about the "great" price of $283 if you had found it for the $260ish around the same time period?

The whole reason why I did this thread in the first place was because I myself am wanting to purchase this drive and of course I want to get the best price on it.

I guess you would have liked the thread better with only 1 price?
I could have posted the lowest $260 AR price.
And then rebate haters would have replied "but you can get it for $264 at ZZF"
And then people in CA would have replied, but I have to pay taxes so its cheaper to get it for $275 w/ coupon at directron

Posting a single price might not help those groups. Posting several very well might.

Is it the level of detail that you dont like? I do this in most of my posts, not just in the HD forum. One example would be when I post in the FS/FT forum.
And in addition, I've been trying to include Cliff notes, or bolding the more important parts so people who have no interest in reading a long post can just look at the pertinent parts.

You think I post in AT for self agrandizment and bumping of my own posts? LOL
If I did do that, you'd see far more of "OMG IM TEH BEST AND Y00 SUX" and much more than a single bump in 10 days when price drops.

Oh wait, thats not me, that looks like you. In a HD thread about the 74g your reply was:

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
ROFLMAO, I've got the Raptor 2 150GB 16MB 10K RPM == DA BEST

BTW, its the 3rd generation of raptor, not raptor 2. Unles you meant SATA II like your sig says, which is incorrect. Its SATA I, 150 meg/s interface.

Ironically, you bumped my thread as much with your two replies, than I had in nearly 10 days before this post. If you really want this to die, thats not going about it very logically.

I post in AT HD to give back to a community that has helped me find good deals. If I'm looking for a raptor at a decent price, I imagine others are as well. Since I spent the time researching the best price, why not help others out so they dont have to waste that time as well?

If you come up with a better price (excluding things like ebay and warrantyless drives), I will be happy to link to your thread. Just let me know.

 

[DidlySquat]

ok cool, but right now the fact is I have this drive and you don't

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: DidlySquat
ok cool, but right now the fact is I have this drive and you don't

Thanks for proving my points. And thanks for the bump.

Dont worry, I'll get the drive sooner or later.

Nice video card and monitor BTW.

 

[fzaba]

TY Devistater! In for one from Newegg. I'll take their rebate + better customer support over Zipzoomfly.
Anandtech needs more people like you and less of the, well, you get the point!

 

[Devistater]

Monarch computers dropped to $261+$5 shipping, and they are not located in CA

I'm so tempted to order

 

[DidlySquat]

what are you waiting for ? to save $10 more ?!?!? based on the price history of the 74G raptor it's not going to go down very much, because it's the only 10Krpm consumer hard drive, and there is always a market for the extreme high end. So if you think it's worth it to you, then go for it

 

[mb]

$249.00 + $5.50 ground shipping = $254.50 http://www.isquaredinc.com/WES150Rinfo.html
Tax is charged to residents of UT.


Decent RR http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2008.html

 

[Devistater]

Originally posted by: supafly
$249.00 + $5.50 ground shipping = $254.50 http://www.isquaredinc.com/WES150Rinfo.html
Tax is charged to residents of UT.


Decent RR http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2008.html

Interesting find. But I have a sneaking suspiscion that its a warrantyless drive. For instance, dell often sells drives (non retail packaged ones) that have only a dell 30 day warranty, and NONE from WD. Dell makes a deal with WD to get cheaper drives, and the deal is that dell will provide all support. Theoretically you could aquire some from dell and resell them, or do something similar.

There was a similar find a few months ago with the 150 gig raptor for a similar price.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=40&threadid=1801524

I'm guessing thats why they dont say the actual warranty length on their page under the warranty section. Either that or its refurbished.
If you get the drive, type the serial # into the WD page and let us know what the warranty is.

I could be wrong and this could be legit, but its weird that no other popular online retailer has pricing within $10 of them.

 

[remagavon]

Originally posted by: Devistater

Originally posted by: supafly
$249.00 + $5.50 ground shipping = $254.50 http://www.isquaredinc.com/WES150Rinfo.html
Tax is charged to residents of UT.


Decent RR http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2008.html

Interesting find. But I have a sneaking suspiscion that its a warrantyless drive. For instance, dell often sells drives (non retail packaged ones) that have only a dell 30 day warranty, and NONE from WD. Dell makes a deal with WD to get cheaper drives, and the deal is that dell will provide all support. Theoretically you could aquire some from dell and resell them, or do something similar.

There was a similar find a few months ago with the 150 gig raptor for a similar price.
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=40&threadid=1801524

I'm guessing thats why they dont say the actual warranty length on their page under the warranty section. Either that or its refurbished.
If you get the drive, type the serial # into the WD page and let us know what the warranty is.

I could be wrong and this could be legit, but its weird that no other popular online retailer has pricing within $10 of them.

Yeah I'd pay the extra $10 or so to buy from a reputable place. But that would be a great deal if it's the normal drive with the full warranty. I'm posting to mark this thread as I'm probably going to be getting myself one of these in the future.