Looks like there are on sale again.  This time for 179.99

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401

BEST BUY HAS THEM AT $129 RIGHT NOW!

something about them being white label drives now, though. so is that bad?

Edited November 9, 20178 yr by s_mason16

BUST BUY HAS THEM AT $129 RIGHT NOW!

something about them being white label drives now, though. so is that bad?

The link above shows them @ $199. Are you saying at the store?


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Here is the link to the 8TB WD Easystore drive for $130 - I don't know whether or not they still contain WD Reds.

 

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/6110900.p?skuId=6110900

 

UPDATE: this link says they are SOLD OUT; however, this may just be an early posting of a Black Friday deal and as BB often does with these drives, they could go on sale again at the same or slightly higher price.  If you are in the market for 8TB drives, it's worth keeping an eye on this.

 

The link I originally posted to start this thread still shows the drives available @ $200.  They are different SKUs.  Following that link over the months has always shown the drive at its current price at the time.  The lowest I saw was $160.  Since these are different SKUs, it may well be that the more expensive model has Red drives and the cheaper one is white label.  The model number is also different.

Edited November 8, 20178 yr by Hoopster

Different product, WDBCKA0080HBK-NEBB what it is now at $129 and WDBCKA0080HBK-NESN which is what it has been and is at $199 now.  Most likely different drives inside.  The NEBB is sold out, the NESN should still be in stores.  Go try your luck at convincing a store tech to price match.

On 11/8/2017 at 10:14 AM, unevent said:

Different product, WDBCKA0080HBK-NEBB what it is now at $129 and WDBCKA0080HBK-NESN which is what it has been and is at $199 now.  Most likely different drives inside.  The NEBB is sold out, the NESN should still be in stores.  Go try your luck at convincing a store tech to price match.

Verified the NEBB are WD80EMAZ white labels. 

10 hours ago, phbigred said:

Verified the NEBB are WD80EMAZ white labels. 

TLER?  3.3v reset? I've read mixed reports on reddit regarding those being present.

11 hours ago, unevent said:

TLER?  3.3v reset? I've read mixed reports on reddit regarding those being present.

Didn’t need either. I have a evga 80 bronze 850W power supply that is a 2017 model. Nothing special needed in my rig. 

These are down to $160 for Black Friday, I assume through Saturday.   

I can confirm the $159.99 price. My Best Buy had quite a number of them. The other EasyStore disks that have a different SKU and are priced at $129.99 were not in the store. Not sure if they sold out of them or they were never in the store. Personally I'd spend the extra for the regular ones (from Thailand if you can find them that we pretty much know are WD Red Heliums with 256M cache inside) over the white labels. I have only one experience with white labels and it was a bad experience, so maybe I'm not a good one to ask . $20/T is quite a bargain. Compare it to a 10T Ironwolf on sale at $300 = $30/T - 50% premium! At those prices, to get ~40T, you'd buy 5 (4+1P) 10T drives = $1500, or 6 (5+1P) 8T = $960.

I managed to pickup 2 of the NEBB drives yesterday for $129.99 each.  They were one of the doorbuster deals, so I think they went quickly.  I also picked up 2 of the NESN drives for $159.99 each.  I don't need all four drives, so now I have to figure out which ones to keep.  What's the deal with the 3.3v reset thing on the white labels?  Is this a problem with the shucked NESN (Reds?) drives, too?

Not sure what you are referring to with the 3.3v reset. I have a couple of the shucked WD 8T REDS and they work great. 

 

If you can shuck without damaging - not hard if you follow the shucking guidance - you could preclear each and see how they do. I bought some white labels a while back - I remember they were sort of a weird size - like 3.6T or something. Didn't work. I think I bought 4 of them, and 3 gave SMART errors on the preclear. The 4th one precleared once, but they developed smart issues within days of being in my array. 

 

White normally means something the vendor started to make but then decided not to sell. Could be because they didn't work well, or because they were just not the right product for the market.  But give them a try. Cheap is good, and $16.25 / T is cheap!

Some drives used in external enclosures use the 3.3V pin on the SATA connector as a reset.  Some power supplies provide this 3.3V and it causes a constant reset condition when used as an internal drive.  Using a Molex to SATA adapter keeps that from happening for those with power supplies that have the 3.3V provided on SATA power connectors (or snip the 3.3V line).  Google for details.

4 hours ago, unevent said:

Some drives used in external enclosures

 

It's not just external drives, it's a new optional standard:

 

https://www.hgst.com/sites/default/files/resources/HGST-Power-Disable-Pin-TB.pdf

On 11/26/2017 at 7:25 PM, johnnie.black said:

 

It's not just external drives, it's a new optional standard:

 

https://www.hgst.com/sites/default/files/resources/HGST-Power-Disable-Pin-TB.pdf

 

SATA rev 3.3, released Feb 2016.  Useful in datacenter/enterprise drives and not of much use in consumer drives so most probably won''t see it in consumer drives except for those used in external enclosures.

 

Edited November 28, 20178 yr by unevent

Thanks to @SSD for turning me on to the easystore 8TB at Best Buy. I bought 2 today for Cyber Monday at $149.99. Inside was the WD RED NAS 8TB WD80EFAX. If you are gentle and follow the instructions in this video, you will be all set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6VCQ64DkfM

 

Good luck!

Just checking in with my result if anyone cares.

 

Bought a NESN on Friday for $159.  Was a white label drive inside.

Thankfully it powers up fine in my unRaid server 3x5 enclosure. Preclearing now at 188MBs.

Are these preferred over the seagate archive/compute drives in the backup plus hub external drives? These are easier to shuck probably.

I bought 2 of these also but looked on bottom of box to see where it was made. Took the ones from Thailand but noticed that there were China made ones also on the same shelf. Both mine are the red labels. 

Edited November 28, 20178 yr by Harro

16 hours ago, LFTech said:

Thanks to @SSD for turning me on to the easystore 8TB at Best Buy. I bought 2 today for Cyber Monday at $149.99. Inside was the WD RED NAS 8TB WD80EFAX. If you are gentle and follow the instructions in this video, you will be all set: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6VCQ64DkfM

 

Good luck!

If you snooze, you loose. Deal is now $199.99 instead of $149.99 at Best Buy. Should have shopped before bed.

 

Should I still snatch some more up at this price or wait until it drops again. According to PCPartPicker, looks like in October the drive was $300.00.

55 minutes ago, LFTech said:

Should I still snatch some more up at this price or wait until it drops again

 

The price on this drive changes quite often at Best Buy.  It has fluctuated between $150 - $200 most of the year.  Sometimes it is priced as high as $250 and the "list" price is always stated as $300.  If you do not have an urgent need now, I think you will see it at $180 again soon and every so often it drops to $160.  The Black Friday/Cyber Monday prices were the lowest seen this year.  The most common prices for the drive are $200 and $180.

Thanks @Hoopster! I do not have an urgent need now. Whenever the drive drops back down to $160 or $180 I will snatch it up again.

On 11/27/2017 at 5:34 PM, PCRx said:

Just checking in with my result if anyone cares.

 

Bought a NESN on Friday for $159.  Was a white label drive inside.

Thankfully it powers up fine in my unRaid server 3x5 enclosure. Preclearing now at 188MBs.

 

You bought a NESN with a white label drive inside? Anyone else see this? To date all NESN's have been REDS, and NEBB's, white labels.

 

The REDs are helium filled and the label covers the entire drive front. It is decidedly more "white" than other drives. White label drives do not reference the manufacturer or any recognizable model number. They are "generic" drives and usually carry a large white sticker, although I suppose they could use any color and still be termed white label if they do not carry the manufacturer and drive model.

On 11/26/2017 at 2:34 PM, unevent said:

Some drives used in external enclosures use the 3.3V pin on the SATA connector as a reset.  Some power supplies provide this 3.3V and it causes a constant reset condition when used as an internal drive.  Using a Molex to SATA adapter keeps that from happening for those with power supplies that have the 3.3V provided on SATA power connectors (or snip the 3.3V line).  Google for details.

 

My drives are in CSE-M35T-1Bs (5in3s) which require a traditional 4 pin Molex for power. Guess this would mask this issue for me. Good to know though.

10 hours ago, SSD said:

 

You bought a NESN with a white label drive inside? Anyone else see this? To date all NESN's have been REDS, and NEBB's, white labels.

 

The REDs are helium filled and the label covers the entire drive front. It is decidedly more "white" than other drives. White label drives do not reference the manufacturer or any recognizable model number. They are "generic" drives and usually carry a large white sticker, although I suppose they could use any color and still be termed white label if they do not carry the manufacturer and drive model.

 

Yes, I bought 6 NESN's and 2 of them are white label WD80EMAZ drives.  The other 4 are WD80EFAX Red drives.  Once the Reds pass a WD full drive scan and a preclear, the 2 white labels will be returned to Best Buy.

 

Here's a chart that explains what the model numbers mean: