Hard drive prices skyrocketing... should I just get a SSD?

I'm building a PC pretty soon. I would say no to the ssd. If you planned to use the ssd for boot data, it would be too small - and for boot data AND storage, 60gb is mini.

My system is gonna have a GTX 560 and an i5 2300. I'm gonna use a 750gb 64mb cache 7200rpm Sata III HDD. I would go for the HDD, depending on how fast it is. What is the spin speeds? How much cache? Which revision of Sata are you using?

When I bought my last machine I got a 60gb SSD with it. I found that after installing Windows 7 Ultimate, updating it and installing a couple basic apps (Microsoft Security Essentials and 7zip) I only had 20gb left. Basically you will have to limit yourself to 1 or 2 decent sized games and that is it. I upgraded it to a 120gb SSD within a month.

You're right about the Thailand floods affecting HDD prices. Its roughly estimated to take 6 months or more before the production process is back to normal and prices drop back to normal.

There is nothing wrong with exclusively using a small SSD as long as you're OK with not having much storage. However any old HDD will do for a little extra storage if you have one lying around.

Crucial and OCZ are probably the most popular brands for fast SSDs at a decent price.

There is no problem using a single ssd as the only drive on your pc so long as it will hold what you need. I think 60gb is about the minimum. I do it, and have used 80gb of 111 with no problem.
There are 6-8 games installed.

My preference would be intel or samsung, for reliability but they tend to be a bit more expensive.
http://www.behardware.com/articles/831-7/components-ret...

For a System that has 1 SSD and 1 HDD:
Minimum Recommended size is 60/64 gigs with the recommended size being 100/128 gig.

For a single drive system such as a laptop (w/only one HDD bay) is 80 gig.

However, in your case, since it is for a relatively short time you can get by.
Most of my systems, Windows Plus programs are around 35 -> 40 gigs (I have NO games installed on SSD).

.. 64 gig SSD really is only around 58 Gigs (dec vs power of 2's)
.. Must leave at least 10 % free so know 64 gig is down around 50 Gigs.
.. Need the following tweaks as a min:
.. (1) disable hibernation - save 4 -> 6 gigs
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920730
.. (2) Set page file (virtual memory) min and max to the same value, ie 4 gigs ram set it to 1024 mb. > 4 gigs ram set to 512mb. And you can redirect it to the HDD to save alittle more (Very slight performance hit). This save upto 6 gigs
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change...
.. (3) Disable restore points Use step 4 below. Click on >To turn System Protection on or off for a particular disk: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Turn-S...
.. (4) One Final Important step: Use windows 7 backup (Under Control panel -> System & Security) and creat a image backup for your “C” drive. You can place on your internal HDD (and as a added precaution copy to BU drive). As long as you have the Windows Installation disk, you do NOT need to create the “Restore Disk” when prompted.

Over here in England, Hard drive prices have more than doubled. Heck, £60 hard drives are being sold for £140. In my budget range, an SSD would be too expensive.

I actually have an old external seagate freeagent 1TB drive but i feel like its super slow. I watched a couple of videos on youtube about removing the drive from the enclosure and feel confident enough to convert it to internal so then ill know the actual speed.

I think im going to try to snag a 60GB SSD for 50-60 bucks this black friday. Theyre already selling well reviewed 120GB for $120 so im sure well be seeing a $1/1GB deal on a 60gb drive this month.

^5 +1 what Retired Chief said.

I did a clean install on my ssd. After all the Microsoft updates, patches, and fixes were dowloaded and installed my grand total for Windows 7 Pro 64 was right around 21GB.

Is this what you're thinking:

1) Get a 60GB 6Gb/s SSD and put your OS and program files on it. This SSD goes on a SATA3 6Gb/s.

2) When HDD prices lower, buy a SATA2 standard 1TB and put that on a 3Gb/s. Move OS, program files and data to HDD. Set up the 60GB SSD as SRT cache to 1TB.

3) When SSD prices lower, buy 120/240GB 6Gb/s SSD and put that on the other SATA3. Move OS and programs to 120GB SSD. Leave data files on HDD. Leave caching to HDD.

4) When HDD prices lower more, buy 250GB SATA2 HDD, on sale, put it on a 3Gb/s and use to backup 120/240GB SSD.