(USA) WD Easystore 8TB External $180 @ Best Buy + FS


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That is indeed an excellent price if it's indeed got an 8TB helium Red drive inside.    Almost $100 less than I've seen a Red for.   2 yr warranty vs. 3 yrs for the bare drives -- but at that price that's a good compromise [You can buy 3 drives and keep one as a spare for the price of 2 of the bare units.]

 

I'm generally not a fan of buying external units and "shucking" external drives, but this is indeed tempting.

 

HOWEVER ... a recent AnandTech article (Jan 2017) said  "... Looks like all new external WD drives have the controller board soldered onto the HD itself, and it is a USB connection, and there is no SATA port at all."     If that's indeed the case, then shucking these drives would NOT work for UnRAID.

 

Your experience from April would tend to indicate WD has NOT done this for the 8TB units -- but it'd certainly be disappointing to buy one (or more) of these and find out they have the new "soldered on" USB controller and no SATA port.

 

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All I know is that several members of the forum were buying these from Best Buy in April for use in unRAID and no one reported not being able to use them because of a soldered on controller.  In fact, your post is the first I have heard of this issue.  Yeah, that would be a big-time disappointment.

 

Here is the "Good Deals" thread from April:

 

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It's a great price for 8TB, regardless of whether or not it can be used as an internal unit; but I agree it'd be a BIG disappointment to buy a handful of them and find out they weren't usable as planned.    I suspect I'll just stay with buying the units designed for internal use ... a few more $$, but at least I get an extra year's warranty (and don't have to save the external case and remount the drive if it does need service).

 

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Reading the AnandTech forum where this is mentioned, it appears that the soldered-on controller is prevalent in the 2.5" externals but the 3.5" external drives still have the SATA to USB adapter and are regular SATA drives in the external enclosure.  I did not read the whole thread, but, as far as I read only 2.5" drives had the usb-only controller and several people with 3.5" drive reported them to be normal SATA drives.

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All the WD 8TB drives are helium so there is a 100% chance yours will be helium.

I bought 17 of these last month and the soldered USB connection refers to the 2.5 externals. The easystore's have a removable UBS to SATA PCB.

The enclosures are extremely easy to open unscathed.


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Went by Best Buy to pick up a few, and all of the local (San Antonio) stores are out of them.    I could order them for shipment, but we're leaving town in 2 days for 2-3 weeks, so I guess I'll miss this chance.    Hopefully they'll do it again in a few months :D.    I did find out there's a limit of 3  (CyberSkulls -- how did you get 17 ??)

 

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There is a limit of three per order; however, you can place multiple orders shipped to the same address. In April, they also had the 4TB Easystore (also have Red drives) for $109 and I ordered several of them for another build for a friend.  BB accepted multiple orders of three to the same address without issue.

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1 hour ago, garycase said:

I could order them for shipment, but we're leaving town in 2 days for 2-3 weeks, so I guess I'll miss this chance.

 

I have had things shipped to my son's address (same city) when out of town for an extended time. Maybe you can order online and have them shipped to a nearby address (friend or family)?   BB does have free 2-day shipping on these drives.

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10 hours ago, garycase said:

Went by Best Buy to pick up a few, and all of the local (San Antonio) stores are out of them.    I could order them for shipment, but we're leaving town in 2 days for 2-3 weeks, so I guess I'll miss this chance.    Hopefully they'll do it again in a few months :D.    I did find out there's a limit of 3  (CyberSkulls -- how did you get 17 ??)

 

 

Well I thought that would save me the trouble of visiting my local San Antonio stores to find one then :) but obviously I'm in a different part of San Antonio to you :)  Found some at North Rim and at La Cantera (well two fewer there as I've just bought 'em!)

 

Edited by stourwalk
updated..
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I live close to the North Rim store -- I drove by earlier today and they told me they didn't have any !!   Perhaps somebody checked their stock after I left, but it is frustrating when you get bad info at the actual store (not just the online "stock" indicator).

 

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I live close to the North Rim store -- I drove by earlier today and they told me they didn't have any !!   Perhaps somebody checked their stock after I left, but it is frustrating when you get bad info at the actual store (not just the online "stock" indicator).
 

If you wanna order some, have them shipped to me and I'll do the quality testing for you. Should only need to test them for a year or two then I'd send them back to ya. What are friends for!!

As other users posted, I just ordered multiple orders of three plus picked up the two at my local store which is why I had the weird number of 17. I had just ordered (6) of the 16TB Duos direct from the WD store using the Plex perks 20% off coupon so got those for $400/EA or $200/drive. So paid slightly more but no shucking required on the Duo and they maintain the 2 year warranty outside the enclosure. So there's another option in the event the BB deal doesn't come back.

But with that said, the BB deal has been on/off every couple damn days for the last 2 months it seems. So it's likely it will be back on when you return home.


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2 minutes ago, CyberSkulls said:

So it's likely it will be back on when you return home.

 

Yes, I'm assuming as much.   And there's absolutely NO rush => I do NOT need the extra storage ... I'm just ready to pick up 8 or so of the 8-10TB units for my "next" server.    Of course once I have a few, I'll undoubtedly just go ahead and build the server.

 

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4 minutes ago, CyberSkulls said:

If you wanna order some, have them shipped to me and I'll do the quality testing for you. Should only need to test them for a year or two then I'd send them back to ya. What are friends for!!

 

... and by the way I appreciate the kind offer; but I don't want to impose on your generosity, so I'll just bite the bullet and do my own testing :D

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Yes, I'm assuming as much.   And there's absolutely NO rush => I do NOT need the extra storage ... I'm just ready to pick up 8 or so of the 8-10TB units for my "next" server.    Of course once I have a few, I'll undoubtedly just go ahead and build the server.
 

I agree. I wanted more but after the BB deal, buying the Duos and the 3 white label 8TB my books from Amazon I ended up with (32) 8TB drives. I've already moved 140TB over to them but figured if I did get more by the time I actually needed that space, the 10TB drives may have come down to affordable levels so I'd be looking at upgrading anyway.

In other words, I didn't want to paint myself into a corner like I did with the 2TB Reds where I had 120 of them running unRAID in (4) HGST 4U60's. 28 data plus 2 parity in each. unRAID handled them perfectly but I want to downsize my setup and continue that trend of fewer, larger drives. So she the time comes to upgrade all of these 12-16TB drives will be the norm since 12TB drives are literally already shipping to datacenters now.


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I agree. I wanted more but after the BB deal, buying the Duos and the 3 white label 8TB my books from Amazon I ended up with (32) 8TB drives. I've already moved 140TB over to them but figured if I did get more by the time I actually needed that space, the 10TB drives may have come down to affordable levels so I'd be looking at upgrading anyway.

In other words, I didn't want to paint myself into a corner like I did with the 2TB Reds where I had 120 of them running unRAID in (4) HGST 4U60's. 28 data plus 2 parity in each. unRAID handled them perfectly but I want to downsize my setup and continue that trend of fewer, larger drives. So she the time comes to upgrade all of these 12-16TB drives will be the norm since 12TB drives are literally already shipping to datacenters now.


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Are you hosting a CDN mirror?
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1 hour ago, aptalca said:

I just bought the WD My Book 8tb from amazon for $183 and it is currently preclearing in the enclosure (usb3 connection)

Anybody know the difference between the two?

Here's mine: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01LQQHLGC

 

It's probably a white label WD80EZZX (as opposed to the WD80EFZX Red in the Easystore) in your 8TB My Book.  That's what's in mine.  There is no consensus regarding what really constitutes a white label drive.  Some think they are Reds that didn't make the grade; other says they are the WD blue drive relabeled. Whatever it is, it's a drive not available as a bare retail drive.

 

The WD80EZZX in the My Book is noisier that the WD80EFZX Red drives in my unRAID array.  Other than that noticeable difference, I have not done any performance testing to compare the two.

 

Here's some useful info from the WD forum:

https://community.wd.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-8tb-wd80efrz-and-wd80ezzx/186381

 

Edited by Hoopster
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On 6/7/2017 at 1:37 PM, CyberSkulls said:

The enclosures are extremely easy to open unscathed.

 

Have shucking instructions link or tips for a first timer. Was passing by Best Buy today and just couldn't resist!

 

 

 

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  Have shucking instructions link or tips for a first timer. Was passing by Best Buy today and just couldn't resist!

 

 

I broke some tabs on my first couple till I stopped trying so hard, watched a similar video then I could open them in about 30 seconds without damage.

 

 

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