[Nottingham] HDD price rises

[Jason Irwin]

Seems the warnings are going out about massive HDD price rises.  Bit of
a bugger as I'd been putting off buying drives until the house was
sorted, anyways...one can still get 2TB jobbies for < £100, which means
there is currently a small premium but not the doom-and-gloom being
reported.  So my questions are:

1) Is SATA III backwards compatible with SATA II?  I think it is, but
it'd be an expensive mistake to make (the HP Micorserver is SATA II) and
for some reason SATA III drives are way cheaper than SATA II (go
figure).  Wikipedia is silent on the subject of SATA III compatibility.

2) Seagate Barracuda Green (5400rpm) or WD Caviar Green
('IntelliPower'rpm)?  I've never had much trouble with drives from
either company and WD replaced a failed USB drive without quibble.  WD
is £22 more and I intend to buy two HDDs.

3) Wait a few months for the hype/speculation to die down and buy
cheaply after Chrimbo?

-- 
Jason Irwin