jbgange,
Ah, good point.
The different prices do not necessarily mean that they are different, but probably what we're seeing is that there are usually slightly different model number shipments from time to time. I don't fully understand the reasoning behind doing that, but it probably has to do partly with manufacturing timing and a desire not to flood the stores with too many drives, etc.
Obviously a good general rule is that the cheaper is slightly older, but I wouldn't honestly expect a whole lot of performance difference. If it's me, without a solid and obvious good reason, I just buy the cheaper since their specs will be almost identical.
Stilgar1973,
You can see the firmware level by using SeaTools for DOS.
If you don't have SD24, I recommend updating to it, yes.
Seatools for DOS tutorial[201271]
