I had to laugh when Newegg's WD drive "deals" came out today and I saw they had the WD 3.0 TB Red drive for a mere $259.99 + $7.28 shipping.  Yesterday, they listed the same drive for $239.99.

 

I realize there is a shortage of these drives and the price has gone up since they were released in July, but, if you can wait a day or two longer to have them shipped from WD rather than an "in-stock" retailer (all of which are charging > $200 for these drives), you can get them much cheaper.  I just bought two of the WD30EFRX 3TB reds from Provatage for $178.55 each + shipping for a total of $370 for two.  They are not in stock, but, the product page claims there is only an additional day or two wait to get them shipped from WD.

 

http://www.provantage.com/western-digital-wd30efrx~AWNDG2TU.htm

 

Yes, there are cheaper alternatives, but, I wanted to give the red drives a try and they do have a 3-year warranty.

 

If you want a 20 pack, you can get that for a paltry $3550.97 and save $1 a drive. :-)

If you want a 20 pack, you can get that for a paltry $3550.97 and save $1 a drive. :-)

 

That's just begging for a drive failure or two.

If you want a 20 pack, you can get that for a paltry $3550.97 and save $1 a drive. :-)

 

That's just begging for a drive failure or two.

 

I doubt too many of us are looking to buy a 20 pack, but, yeah, I can imagine more than a couple could fail when handling and shipping that quantity and potentially from the same manufacturing batch (could be good or bad).  I just found it interesting that they offered a 20 pack and that the savings was only $1 per drive.  I don't have a spare $3500+ laying around.  :-)

And now I see they just increased the price by $25 to $203.54. 

 

Glad I ordered at $178.55.  I hope they honor the price since it increased the same day I ordered.

If I had the money for a 20PK I would be hard pressed to get them all precleared before the RMA period expired.