Cheap External RAID Options
I did some shopping around this week for more storage for work. The idea is to have a mirrored RAID so all my design files are secure, so long as the enclosure and both drives aren’t destroyed at the same time. Here’s the best pricing I found.
Enclosure ($104.99) + 500GB SATA drive $59.95 (2x $119.90) = $224.89
Enclosure ($104.99) + 750GB SATA drive $69.99 (2x $139.98) = $252.29
Enclosure ($104.99) + 1TB SATA drive $79.99 (2x $159.98) = $264.97
My boss ordered the 1TB drives. Yay!
UPDATE: Opps picked the wrong enclosure for RAID 1. This is the enclosure needed. Not sure how I missed that. It’s about $40 more for this enclosure.
I got myself one of these hard drive enclosures for the extra drive I’ll have after my MacBook Pro and PS3 upgrade.
MacBook Hard Drive Upgrade = Free PS3 HDD Upgrade & External Drive
I’m thinking about upgrading my MacBook Pro from it’s stock 320 GB hard drive to 500 GB, to make more room for my Windows gaming partition. The pleasant side effect of this upgrade is a free upgrade for my PS3 and a bonus 80GB external drive.
This round of upgrades would cost me around $130 (or less) to buy the 500 GB 2.5” SATA hard drive and a 2.5” SATA external enclosure.
Since the PS3 also uses 2.5” SATA drives; after cloning my Mac’s system onto 500 GB drive (via the external enclosure) I’ll put the Mac’s old 320 GB hard drive into my PS3. As a bonus I’ll make my PS3’s old 80 GB into an external drive with the enclosure.
Note: The only complication will be making a backup of my PS3’s files (because of DRM). I plan to use another external drive formatted to FAT32 to backup my PS3 files before the upgrade. Any other PS3 compatible flash memory will also work.
My MacBook Pro Upgrade Options
I’ve been thinking of selling my 1 year old MacBook Pro to upgrade to the latest.
Option A: 2.53 GHz 15” MacBook Pro 4GB memory, 320GB hard drive, 512MB graphics
$2,499.00 MacBook Pro + $349.00 AppleCare + $19 Remote = $2,867.00 before tax
+ 9.5% sales tax = $3,139.37 after tax
-$1,600 from selling old MacBook Pro (Assuming I can sell it for this much)
Total cash out of pocket: $1,539.37
Option B: 2.4 GHz 15” MacBook Pro 2GB memory, 250GB hard drive, 256MB graphics
$1,999.00 MacBook Pro + $349.00 AppleCare + $19 Remote = $2,367.00 before tax
+ 9.5% sales tax = $2,591.87 after tax
+ $92.99 320GB 2.5” Hitachi 5400RPM hard drive + $139.99 4GB RAM upgrade kit (no tax and maybe $9 shipping = $241.90)
Grand total of $2,833.85 after tax and upgrades
-$1,600 from selling old MacBook Pro (Assuming I can sell it for this much)
Total cash out of pocket: $1,233.85
Only about $305 savings if I were to buy the lower-end model that wouldn’t even be a big upgrade from my 1 year old MacBook Pro. It would make the most sense to go with option A.
I may also look for an online reseller that doesn’t charge tax in the state of TN, it would save me a good bit on the MacBook Pro if I could.
Update: Amazon doesn’t seem to charge tax in TN.
2.53 GHz 15” MBP $2,494.00 + 2 day shipping $19.89 = $2,513.89
Plus I could buy my AppleCare (with-in 90 days) and AppleRemote from Amazon or another (discount) reseller also without tax.
Update: MacMall offers a $100 rebate on the new MacBooks, however they are based in TN so they would likely tax me. Here’s the 2.53 GHz model.
