PC gaming is about as popular as anywhere else if not more so. And there are plenty of parts and numerous vendors.

to cut a long story short i will just say that it is part of Australia's national agenda to figure out ways to make everything more expensive than it needs to be.

There's a lot of vendors, however its difficult to get all the parts you might want from one single place here

Just a short coment on the external drive. The newer ones are even internally USB only so no SATA connector anymore. You cant just put them out of the case and connect to SATA anymore.
Nevertheless the newest 2.5" are very nice to take with you and have a lots of data always available :)

It smells of another way of limiting consumer freedoms. On the other hand, if the drives are specifically designed to work USB, not the usual 'jerry rigged' stuff we are all used to, then it could be a good thing? I would sacrifice flexibility for noticeable improvements in performance and reliability (especially reliability).

Pretty much why I have never liked Intel. Their only objective is 'profit' and they brazenly price their products in an exorbitant fashion. Not only that but their motherboards offer very little room for upgrades since very new generation has a different socket. This coupled with unethical business practices that they used in an adroit fashion to canvass a near monopoly in the market. We, as consumers are compelled to purchase Intel processors since there is little in the way of tenable alternatives in the x86 market.

Well, the advantages are that it is cheaper to build and for the customer the cases get smaller and everything lighter. Bad thing, when it doesnt work anymore you cant try to put it on SATA and check if it was a controller problem.

Right, it's nothing to do with screwing the consumer in the name of profit, it's making an interface that costs less and works better (no USB - SATA - internal conversion).

At 5GB/s data rates, imposing an extra layer of interface just so your drives can be re-used for a purpose they weren't designed for is not consumer friendly, it's stupid. A drive that speaks native USB 3.0 is a big win.

Used for a purpose they weren't meant for? Oh like data storage?

As for the drive speaking native USB, well yes, that is where it 'can' make big improvements, the question is 'will' they and or to what extent?

No, imposing SATA interface won't cost more because it is using the advantage of 'economies of scale' and established manufacturing processes (But as time goes on the native USB interface should become competitive). Meanwhile there will be cowboys trying to palm off disguised 'Jerry rigged' USB interface drives because they have access to ample quantities of cheaper SATA drives. Especially when USB interface HDD take market share and those manufacturing SATA will have to cut their price.

That's just baloney. Good luck with your new computer, and to hell with your bullshit.

Native USB-interface controllers for hard disks have been standard for at least four years.

Well, you can buy external drive case and choose what hdd to put in it if you want choise. There are even blug-in stations where you just put the hdd in a slot and can even swap hdd's on fly. Not that the extrernal hdd's were ever designed to be opened to being with and doing so always voided the warrancy anyway.

Disappointing,

Even if i disagree strongly with someones comments on this forum you will find no insults (sarcasm perhaps) in my posts and i can say the same of most other people in this forum, Good luck with your growing up.