HGST Touro Desk Pro 4TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive 0S03503 149.99 w/FS With Promo Code EMCWWWV54.

 

Ends 11/18.

 

2 year warranty (external).

 

$37.50 per TB.

Reminder, there are excellent drives inside of these:  Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 HDS724040ALE640

 

I don't need more storage, but its hard to pass up these prices.

my only concern is the reviews are very mixed. the warranty is 2 years but the drive itself is for 5 years but i doubt the warranty for the drive will remain valid if taken out of its case.

my only concern is the reviews are very mixed. the warranty is 2 years but the drive itself is for 5 years but i doubt the warranty for the drive will remain valid if taken out of its case.

 

I haven't tried actually doing an RMA, but I removed a Hitachi_HDS5C4040ALE630 from its enclosure and fed the serial in to the Hitachi warranty checker and it showed a valid warranty. I don't know if they'll actually honour it, but the drive was so cheap (even cheaper than this deal), I'm not really that concerned.

 

As for reliability, ignore any consumer reviewers. Ask Backblaze. They have 25,000 drives and see a drastically lower failure rate on Hitachi vs. all other brands.

In the past, WD has been pretty good with honoring the warranty on drives I've removed from external enclosures.

In all honesty, removing the drive from the enclosure is probably going to make the drive last longer anyway.

In all honesty, removing the drive from the enclosure is probably going to make the drive last longer anyway.

I would agree with this.  I got the non-Pro version (5400RPM) drive and was going to use it as an external drive.  Ran it that way for a while and temps got to mid to upper 50's with it and plenty of air around it.  It was on an empty shelf open rack entertainment center in my living room.  Once I removed the drive and put it in my server in the basement it has been in the 20s and 30s.