The 20,000 Peso PC Parts Guide
by Mark Rubrico

  It is very clear, from the hard drive table of prices shown in the previous page, that avoiding the smallest sized drives would save you money. To illustrate the point take time to study this second table carefully.

  In the table above we get the peso per gigabyte ratio. This enables us to establish a basis for buying the right hard drive. When looking at the table we see clearly that the 17.2 Gigabyte hard drive offers the lowest PPG ( Price per Gigabyte )ratio. It would be very tempting to immediately buy this one. Because this hard drive costs 5450 pesos, it would take a very large chunk of our 20,000 peso budget. Therefore, although it offers the lowest PPG ratio ( most bang for the buck ! ), the 17.2 gigabyte hard drive would not be a feasible option for our budget system.

  To further illustrate this, a graph showing the price per gigabyte ratio is presented below.

  The 4.3 gigabyte are the worst hard drives to get!

  When trying to imagine the slope of these series of bars, we see that after the 8.4 gigabyte it slowly starts to get steep. This trend somewhat stops at the 13 gigabyte level, then again continues upward ending at the 17.2 gigabyte level.

  We see that both the 8.4 and 13 ( and to some extent the 10 ) gigabyte hard drives offer extreme value. The 13 gigabyte hard drive seems to be the better choice since it costs more than a 100 pesos cheaper per gigabyte than the 8.4 gigabyte hard drive. However, like the 17.2 gigabyte hard drive, the 13 gigabyte drive is relatively too expensive to be included in our budget system.

  That leave us with two remaining options: 8.4 and 10 gigabyte hard drives. They are priced 300 pesos apart: at 4200 for the 8.4 gigabyte and 4500 for the 10.2 gigabyte hard drive. Naturally, we should go for the 10.2 gigabyte hard drive. However, if a three-year warranty is available, opting for the 8.4 gigabyte hard drive should save you some money.

  Update: Several stores sell 8.4 gigabyte hard drives for less than 4100. This should set the odds against the not-so common ( none for the other brands )10.2 hard drive. Go for the 8.4!

  Again, try to find a computer shop that offers a 3 year warranty with their hard drives.

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