CHEAP HARD DISCS FOR THE EDIT SUITE

One thing video editor’s always run out of is hard disk space – well, also red bull/coffee to keep editing in the small hours, but mainly hard disk space.

However, there’s a problem – hard discs have suddenly shot up in price due flooded factories in Thailand – find out more from this link…

INFOWORLD: IMPENDING HARD DRIVE SHORTAGE – AND POSSIBLE PRICE HIKES

Don’t panic though, I think I may have found a short-term work around.  I wanted an extra terrabyte of storage for my edit suite.  After a short browse of a local computer shop I found that a bare drive was 500gb for £79.99.  That seems like half the capacity for double the price of the last drive I bought.  However, just underneath it was a posh external USB drive that had the 1tb I desired for £79.99.  Twice the capacity and an enclosure for the same price as the 500gb bare drive.

So, are the hard drives inside the enclosures from pre-flood stock and therefore acquired at the lower price?

The hard drive enclosure represents far better value than the bare drive – all well and good but I didn’t want an external USB drive – I wanted to fit it inside the computer on a SATA connector (quick for video editing).  The staff in the shop believed it could be done – but at my own risk!  After half an hour of carefully releasing plastic clips and a small amount of blood loss I ended up with a bare drive and the enclosure back in the box:

The drive formatted first time and is now tucked safely away inside the edit suite.  But just to prove I did get the 1 terrabyte SATA hard drive I was after, click on the image below:

Please don’t try this at home and blame me if you destroy your hard drive.  You proceed as I did – at your own risk!