Not a bad deal if you only have $40 to spend on a hard drive, though you can get much higher capacities for very little additional money. NewEgg runs this deal pretty frequently, so no need to buy today if you don't really need a hard drive.

I like these drives. I have three in a linux software RAID-5 (file server + virtualization host), two sets of two in linux software RAID-1 (firewalls), and a couple of singles in Windows XP desktops. All have been working for several months without failures.

Drives like these are great for client (regular) PCs, especially as bulk storage in conjunction with an SSD for the OS and apps.

Benefits include:

- Low cost per client (put the savings towards large HDDs in a fileserver)

- Lower heat, noise, power consumption and wear from having only one platter and one read/write head.

- Easier data recovery, unlike multi-platter drives which would lose platter alignment, a data recovery center can literally pull the platter from a single platter drive and put it in a 2nd host drive. Ideally you would purchase more than one of the same drive from same place, same time, to get two identical drives including firmware version. Even if you use the 2nd drive for a 2nd system, should the day arise that you need to you can clone the 2nd drive onto a different drive to keep that system running and have the 2nd drive available for recovery from the failed drive... but of course before sending the drive to a recovery center it wouldn't hurt to try to DIY and swap the circuit boards.

Granted, everyone should be making backups so everyone always does, right?

This is a better deal

http://bensbargains.net/redirect/175517/Western-Digital-Caviar-Blue-500GB-SATA-6.0Gb-s-HDD-40-at-Newegg

Isn't it pretty much the same #3, except SATA III instead of II which should make no difference on mechanical HDDs?