Hard drives are perhaps not the sexiest shopping category during the Black Friday sales, so it's no wonder media outlets have largely ignored these advertised offers. But because we're nerds at dealnews, we're pretty excited for Black Friday deals on hard drives. Unfortunately though, a close inspection of the current ads tells a somewhat sorry story for deals — so far.
No store has advertised anything remotely close to our price predictions for hard drives, which was $39 for a 1TB external HDD and $49 for a 2TB external HDD. And even though the floods in Thailand last month might have some effect on the willingness of stores to offer promotions on a product that may see future shortages, we're still convinced we'll see better deals come Black Friday. However, judging from these in-store ads, those deals are more likely to be online. Here's a rundown of the ads so far:
- Staples has some pretty underwhelming offers, beginning with the Western Digital My Book Essential 3TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive for $150. We actually saw this model for $20 less last month. Meanwhile, we saw the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1.5TB Portable HDD for less recently too, and the Seagate GoFlex 2TB Home Network Storage System will cost $130, which is just $10 less than what Best Buy charges right now. The other drives don't feature specific model numbers, but their price per GB is nothing to write home about.
- BJ's Wholesale Club could potentially offer the most notable deal in the bunch with the Seagate 3TB External Hard Drive for $90. If it pans out, that would be the lowest total price we've ever seen for such a drive from Seagate, as well as the third cheapest 3TB external HDD.
- Office Depot will offer the Seagate GoFlex 3TB Home Network Storage System for $150, which would be an all-time low by $20. Note that this 3TB model costs just $20 more than the 2TB option at Staples.
- Otherwise, there are more ho-hum offers from OfficeMax, Best Buy, Walmart, and a few others. If you're not particular about the manufacturer of your drive, you could likely get better deals than these by setting up an email alert and waiting to see when these storage capacities are listed for less online.
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