WD Green Desktop 2TB SATA 6.0 GB/s 3.5-Inch Internal Desktop Hard Drive Retail Kit

This whole conversation is kind of strange, but let's play along anyway.

If you deal shop, you can get the price down:.

    [1] $40 Raspberry Pi - Model B, because that's all that's available (includes $5 shipping)
    [2] $10 Enclosure (some DIY required)
    [3] $116 WD 2TB Hard Drive (selected WD because that is [apparently] what Apple uses)
    Total: $166

That's an aggressive HD price, and remember, you need an external HDD. A lot of the pricing being thrown around here is for internal drives. Regular price on the drive I spec'd was $180. There are always deals to be had though. The price may be more depending on your timing.

The case I spec'd is extremely DIY as well. If you went with something nicer, you'd spend more as well. It's kind of hard to justify a crappy case when you're comparing to a Time Capsule.

So if you add in $20 for a HDD price not-so-on-sale and $10 for a nicer case (Adafruit is decent), you're looking at $196, which is edging up toward the cost of a Time Capsule, and that's not factoring in time for configuration.

The whole point here is that you don't do projects like this to save money. You do projects like this for the fun and learning experience, or to have greater control/flexibility. If you go in to this project to save money, then I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

1 - Pick a vendor any vendor (pricing is standard)

2 - http://blujay.com/item/Black-Electronic-Project-Box-100-x-60...

3 - http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-3-5-Inch-Internal-Desk...