I posted a PDF of the spreadsheet printout to see if anyone found it useful. If it is helpful, let me know, otherwise, I will not make any in the future.

1. Starting to add hyperlink for where I found pricing, so people can see where it came from. This will never be perfect, but will be a best possible...
2. Updated some pricing for new drives
3. Updated some characteristics for various drives (i.e. power, etc.). As always if it is blank i was not able to find the information from the manufacturer published spec sheets.
   
4. Filling is some of the empty pricing. Still have a couple new drives that I cannot find publicly advertised prices yet, so they are still blank. This causes the lowest 20 prices to be skewed by a couple zero priced drives... This will solve itself once the published prices are available.

Latest update info

1. Updated prices on various drives
2. Added Enterprise drives from Toshiba
3. Fixed some performance data that was out dated.
4. Added more hyperlinks to various sites for the latest information for each drive manufacturer

• Doing more work on pivot charts - in process
• Seagate decided to change names on much of its enterprise data to "Exos" Some specs have changed. Mostly just name for marketing purposes, from the best I can tell. I still need to update more in this area. Will take some time
• Updated prices, etc.

As always this is a work in progress. You may see fields, data structures that are not complete. Please ignore and know that I am working on it.

The latest...

• Added some more 2.5" drives
• Added some more pivot tables and graphs. You can play with some of the filters. A good one is warranty generally, select 5 years (PRO/Enterprise), 3 years (SOHO), 2 years (Home)
  Formfactor: 2.5", 3.5"
  Type: NAS
• Updated pricing on a bunch of drives
• Updated some specs on various drives
• Add a 14TB drive, but no price yet...
• I am starting to add hyperlinks on where I gather the drive specifications from. This should enable you to easily peruse the specs on your own. The hyperlink in on the model field. Many more to add.

A couple examples of graphs that might help you understand where you are spending your money.

You can see the cost of drives by size per year... You can see where the sweet spot is:

Want to know SOHO average cost 3 year warranty by RPM by manufacturer.

Enjoy!

• Adding charts & tables to the data more visibly understandable
  Will be adding more in future
  
• Updated prices on various drives
• Updated a couple specs

Here are the latest changes:

• Added more disk drives
• Updated prices on various drives
• Updated some specs that were wrong and/or changed
• Added a worksheet that has some pivot tables along with a graphic. I will be adding more in this area as time goes on.
  The goal is to make buying decisions easier.
• Work on adding some more tables/graphs for other specifications that make it easier to see and understand the numbers, which will hopefully make better buying decisions for NAS users.
• The graphs/tables are an ongoing process and you might see things that make no sense. It is quite likely that it was some notepadding...

If anyone wants to tinker and help out, feel free to do so. I just do it between other tasks and have some fun with it.

Enjoy!

• Added some lines to delineate the different manufacturers to improve ease of reading
  More work being done in this area
  
• Updated a bunch of prices
• Working on filling in empty cells - Little by little

This update includes:

• More latency information
• More seek information
• More transfer rate information
• Workload, Cycle count, Error rate (e.g. 1.0+16 & 1.0+17 drives)
• Watts active, idle, standby
• Updated pricing information on a hand full of drives

You will see open cells spread throughout because the manufacturers tend to not share all of the normal data. Makes me think they are hiding something (my opinion only).

PRICING
As usual prices bounce around. HINT: Just because the retail sales company says it is a special, does not mean it is, even if they say 10% off. Compare prices over time to get a real idea of pricing. I probably should make a database and enable a graph showing you pricing on a drive you choose - you would be surprised. Know your prices!

QUALITY
Pay attention to Error Rate, MTBF, warranty, cycle count and work load. These specifications really tell you how the drive SHOULD perform over the long haul. It gives you an idea of how well the manufacturer stands behind its product and how well they expect the drive will standup to time.

A 3 year warranty means you will probably will have to replace it sooner than one with a 5 year warranty. If under warranty, you will get a used drive that has passed the manufacturers requirements. MTBF gives you an idea of how long a drive might last using some statistical magic (HINT: look up what the number really means)... and the list goes on. I suppose we could create a weighted number for comparison purposes from these values that might make it easier to choose a drive based upon these values. Problem is, the algorithm will never make everyone happy. Maybe something for a rainy day.

Enjoy!

• Tried to fill in more holes that were lacking data. Pain in the rear digging this up.
• Added seek times column. in process if filling in cells.
• Updated cycle count on a bunch of drives.
• Updated prices on a good dozen or two drives
  
• Put the performance data together and put header word "PERFORMANCE over them.
• Worked on MTBF and error rate. One 15k RPM drive has this at 1.0E+17. The next higher is 1.0E+15. Pretty impressive number compared to other drives.
• Updated a bunch of data for power usage.
• Found prices on the couple of drives that I did not have prices for. Amazon to the rescue!
  
• 
  

I have added new columns provide more information. You will notice that it is not filled in in some places, yet. Bear with me, it takes time and energy. I am adding them as I go.

1. Added more disk drives & their information
2. Added some more columns with various useful pieces of information.
3. Updated prices and other data for newly released drives.

More to come...