WD 12 TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive $304 + Delivery (Free with Prime) @ Amazon UK via AU
WD 12TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive $304 + Delivery (Free with Prime) @ Amazon UK via AU
![](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/u/16/133616-38.jpg?h=381cfea0)
Last edited 17/08/2020 - 10:25 by 1 other user
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You should mention prime free shipping
AND…
"Risk of Loss
All purchases of International Products are made pursuant to a shipment contract.
This means that the risk of loss and title for International Products pass to =you=
upon our delivery to the carrier =outside= Australia."
No love from Cash rewards!!
That's a shame, makes it less attractive than the other $310 deal with 5% CB ($281.90) - still a deal though.
It was actually 6% cashback, even better.
you sure cr/sb dont work it's still going through the au website
It's 0% for electronics.
Yes, but we get 100% of that, after 90 days.
Deal!!
Category is computers & accessories which is still 0%.
Can someone explain to me how the cashrewrds/shopback thing works? I see it mentioned every now and then on here, is it a card that you get money back after a purchase or something?
Hi Any suggestions for a cheap network storage?
R Pi 4 - 2GB version if you are tech savvy. Or, if your router has a USB-3 port, use that.
Odroid hc2 is another good sbc for nas use — arguably better than the pi4 since it was designed for that purpose, so it has features like an actual sata port rather than relying on usb.
The HC2 is great. I've got four of them bonded together running MooseFS for a fast and reliable NAS with some fault tolerance.
You can get them directly from the manufacturer (HardKernel) or from JiffyShop, but JiffyShop is much more expensive.
Although fun fact, the SATA port is actually connected internally via USB3 ;)
Any used computer should do the trick. I'm a bit fan of openmediavault which is pretty easy to setup. If you need to buy something, then I recommend a HP Elite 8300 or newer, which goes for $150-200 or so.
AMD can be better since pretty much all their CPU's and chipsets support ECC RAM, just need to make sure the MB also supports it. Then again, Intel you get quicksync if you are also running Plex doing transcoding. Some of their consumer CPU's do also support ECC, but need the right chipset. Actually have an old server with a I think C204 ITX board and Core i3. ECC memory + quciksync. Not sure what is possible with newer Intel stuff. A cheap Dell SAS card, IBM SAS expander and 4xSAS->SATA cables will let you connect 16 drives for cheap. Can also get 16e cards even cheaper, but being e, the ports are all external.
Maybe. But for 24/7 operation, might cost a bit to run unless the computer is using a low power chip.
$25.33 /TB
I haven't been keeping up with price changes, but is that a good $/TB ? Seriously thinking about getting one of these big ones instead of having 5 smaller ones lying around the house
Something matching 8TB drive’s $/TB so always a good sign. Usually anything larger than 8TB is ~$30/TB.
You may think this way: you’re getting 50% more capacity per slot with the same per TB cost. Essentially saving on the cost of slot.Good price per TB. The last one for the WD Elements 10TB via Amazon UK was $25.08/TB and we thought it was a price error. This one is very close and I'll buy another one to use as an internal drive.
Cheapest ever for the 12TB was $23/TB last month, but might have been a price error since it was corrected very quickly.
The 12TB via amazon worked out to be $23.44/TB (or $22.37/TB if you discount cashback from the price). (So ordered 16 July - but should be delivered this week by AU post).
I read that some orders were cancelled, but Amazon did ship out some units (like the one I ordered), although my shipment has a delay.This price, via UK, is still a good price point (in my view).
You realise that you can buy multiple right?
I think it was the RAID 5 comment which attracted the negative votes.
RAID 5 can recover from 1 drive failure, but the problem is that in practice, there is no guarantee. A good friend of mine found out the hard way when his RAID 5 failed. The restore failed, the recovery also failed. The reality is that backup(s) of important files are needed even if you have RAID 5,6,10.
Have had some luck in the past using ddrescue to clone failed drives, then manually assembling the array. Depends how rooted the failed drive(s) are though.
Then it wasn't a RAID 5 if it failed to restore with a new drive….probably had it set to JBOD by accident…and been using that thinking it was RAID 5…
@Zachary: No, repairing a raid can also fail which is why his mate lost everything when it failed during repair.
@kaal: Sure, but like I said, ddrescue or similar can succeed where mdadm fails. For example if the repair fails due to a read error on one of the other drives, try ddrescue to clone it. ddrescue won't quit for a read error. Best to keep a log and not retry, get as much of the drive as possible on the first pass. Decent chance of getting a full copy. Swap the drives, try the repair again. Of course if more than 2 drives completely fail, then you are screwed, but a HDD doesn't have to be completed screwed to be marked as failed. Thermally cycling a HDD in the freezer can also sometimes help get a drive going long enough to clone it.
ddrescue won't quit for a read error.
How do you read something if there's a read error which just copied over a bunch of nonense?
@Zachary: Sometimes read errors are transient, other times it will eventually read after multiple attempts. ddrescue is much better at handling that. A RAID repair will stop, ddrescue you can skip and log the error, continue with the rest of the drive to maximise the amount of data recovered before the drives completely dies Then hopefully come back and get the missing data if the drive is still working. Also if you have 2 failed drives (in a RAID5 array), can't even attempt a recovery, but with cloning it can be possible and has personally worked for me. As in a failed drive, repair stopped when there's a read error on a 2nd drive. Successfully clone that drive, then restart repair and it finishes.
Of course if more than 2 drives completely fail, then you are screwed, but a HDD doesn't have to be completed screwed to be marked as failed. Thermally cycling a HDD in the freezer can also sometimes help get a drive going long enough to clone it.
I guess RAID 16 or 61 is starting to look attractive…
This ^
ALL drives fail, and you always need a backup if you care about the data !
But this would be good for backing up a NAS.
Thats what I use external WD drives for.
Also don't use RAID in my NAS as a result.
RAID isn't a backup.
Raid 0 is about striping, how is that any way safer then having a single drive.
If you're after data safety, don't look at raid.
Actually wouldn't it be the opposite? It's even less safe than a single drive.
Both Raid 0 & 5 are bad, bad, bad ideas with high capacity disks like these.
Raid 0 would provide zero redundancy - lose one disk, lose all data across however many disks you have in the raid 0 array. Full Data loss.
Raid 5 would provide false redundancy. Lose one disk, statistically high chance of losing a second disk in the recovery process (Puts a lot of strain on the remaining disks to recover data) - leading to full data loss.
You'd need Raid 1 OR 6 minimum with these.
People get so high and mighty when it comes to all this stuff.
At the end of the day I'd bet 9/10 people buying this drive and planning on putting it to use to store "Linux isos" and "4k family videos" a raid 5 type setup would most likely provide just the right balance between having some sort of piece of mind if a drive fails and not costing a fortune with having to duplicate data 1:1 and store offsite etc.
Most of us aren't storing classified FBI documents that can't possibly be lost.
This is about misinformation more than anything. I work in this field - Raid 5 on consumer drives is only viable for small drives (<1TB really) and the failure rate for rebuilds increases the larger the drive.
With 12TB drives in Raid 5 - there is more than an 80% chance of a failed rebuild, and complete data loss when trying to rebuild after a failed drive.
It is a very bad idea to use Raid 5 with high capacity drives like this. It's not about the importance of the data - Raid 5 is useless with these drives - it's a waste. You might as well just use JBOD.
@mahdoo: Thanks. Makes sense.
Higher capacity = more stuff = less likely for data to be 100% intact (bad sectors?) = failed rebuild.
Did I get that right?
@[Deactivated]: Essentially, yes. But it gets more complicated.
If you want some more information:
Every drive has what's called a URE rate (Unrecoverable read error rate) this tells us how likely the manufacturer believes a failed read will occur. If we look at Western Digital reds for example (Which many believe these are similar to) we can see the URE rate is 10 in 10^14. This translates to 1 read error every 12.5TB of data read. With these drives being 12TB - this stat essentially is telling us even if the drive is in top condition - WD expects there to be a 96% chance of a read error while reading the full drive.
When it comes to rebuilding a raid array after a failed drive - a single read error in a raid 5 array will result in a failed, unrecoverable rebuild. The stat of 96% won't be exact, because there's other facters to consider (How old the drive is, how much data needs to be read, how many drives in the array (Since load will be spread across them all)) and other facters - but it results in a damn high failure chance when in raid 5.
https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library…
@mahdoo: Interesting, especially since I'm planning to set up a single parity zfs array sometime soon. Am I right in thinking that the checksumming done by zfs would prevent a single error when reading from parity from trashing the entire rebuild?
@mahdoo: Those are theoretical stats, not researched and surveyed from actual users. Ive had many rebuilds with 8tb, 10tb and 14tb drives all with RAID 5. Never encountered a read error on any of them. Whoever would use these external drives for RAID though deserves any problems they encounter. I've used WD Red, Seagate Ironwolf and WD Ultra Stars in my builds. Even just copying drive to drive from ranges 10tb to 14tb I've only encountered read errors once in the whole time I've been doing it. Not to say it won't happen but percentages are much smaller if you have better drives. That's what they're meant for…
@Whisper Quiet: Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but it's pretty well documented that most/all of the drives themselves in WD externals (at the capacities I've looked at anyway) are reds/whites (almost identical to reds except for 3.3v pins), e.g. see here.
Totally agree that actually using them as external drives with the included cheap usb-sata driver board is a bad idea long term though.
@Whisper Quiet: @Monstalova responding a bit late to the party, but as an FYI - Seagate Ironwolf and WD Ultra Stars both have 10^15 URE rates, so what I've said above aren't applicable to those.
I'm talking about WD Red here - which these drives are roughly equivalent to. These drives aren't built for raid 5, and using raid 5 on these is a bad idea.
I'm seeing $19.13 delivery free only for prime?
Yes. If you do not have Prime, there will be a delivery charge. Worth subscribing to Prime just to save on the delivery fee and then cancelling.
Bought 16 thanks OP
These negs would help you prevent purchasing similar quantities over other deals.
Not sure why he is getting negged tbh
Cause someone said “Stop hoarding“
is it Shuckable or white lable
Yes, reviews suggest likely to contain a WD120EMAZ. First part of the model number is the same as the US drives.
WDBWLG0120HBK-EESN vs. WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN
Guessing N ss North America, E is Europe.And AESN is Australian model.
These will come with UK plug, no fuss if you’re shucking but can claim an AU plug from WD Support for free if not.Hey, do you mean purchase an AU plug from wd, or contact support and tell them you have a drive with uk/us plug and you want an Australian one and they will send one out for free?
@Gamb1t: Contact WD and tell them you bought the drive off amazon but it came with a UK plug but require an AU one. When I asked it took a little over a week for shipping, it came via UPS so you might need to sign for it FYI
Oh it was free as well!
@johnnytran: Thanks. I will contact support and try and get one or two in case I get another drive or maybe I just need to get a cheap NAS. 🤔
Hey can you provide a link to contact their support, the way you did it please? I am in a similar boat and would like an AU plug…
Do these drives aggressively park the heads every few seconds?
If so can you turn that off?
it is shuckable AND white label
I got one WD120EMAZ and one WD120EMFZ from my last order in Amazon USSame. 2x EMFZ and 1x EMAZ for me.
Sorry what does white label mean? I know shucking the drive
It's a white drive, in that it's not really marketed as a red or whatever. So you read the serial to figure out what you got.
I bought three drives from the previous $310 Amazon US deal. All three drives are 12TB WD120EMFZ, Helium filled, white label and shuckable.
Here is a discussion on the drives:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/du0op4/is_the_…same for me, I love them. They have been a big step up for my NAS. Bigger drives in a mirror, freed up 2 slots for me to use old drives striped as a daily sync'd backup (separate to offsite b'up).
if you have a need, jump on themcan I ask, to shuck them, do I have to cover the 3rd pin on the power connector as I have seen in few YT videos?
thanks
@Omarko: further to above, some videos on YT show I can cover all first three pins , is that correct? Can someone please confirm this ?
thank you
@Omarko: You need not to provide the 3rd pin with 3.3V. If the SATA power connector you are using doesn't provide 3.3V, then that will do it. If you have a modular PSU and it does provide 3.3V, I'd suggest it would be better to just pop out that pin. Nothing else likely to require the 3.3V and if you ever want to sell the PSU or return for warranty, you can just re-insert the pin. Can use a couple of decent sized staples to push the pin out. If you don't want to mess with the non drive side of things, then yes you need to cover it. Pins 1, 2 are 3.3V/Reserved, so yes shouldn't be an issue covering.
Still haven't received mine from the last deal… Ordered a month ago.
Yup. My order wasn’t cancelled .
Just give amazon a call or go on their live chat and ask them.
My order is just arrived australia.
I didnt receive four of mine. i rang amazon they told me they got lost and i was issued a refund
Mmm mine says due 26th Aug. might be late.
Oh mine said due 10th august, i got issued refund yesterday
@harryozz: I had the same, response was,
"Your Item is On the way, but it may be late
Your package can still arrive 26 August
We're working to get your package back on track. Please check back later for more delivery info from DPD.
Was expected 26 AugustBut when I check just now,
"Tendered to local postal carrier for final delivery AU""Hope" it will a arrive :)
@chutibuti: Oh fair enough this is what i got https://prnt.sc/u0b556
If they arrive then i guess ill have to send them back to amazon@harryozz: make sense ,,, this is the lowest I have seen,,, deal lasts in few mins… 281 + 7% cash back,, which we may never get …
@chutibuti: There was a deal for 10tb for $220 in mid 2019, thats the lowest per tb i think its ever been that wasnt a pricing error.
@chutibuti: I've been getting this message for lots of international Amazon orders and they usually end up arriving a week or two early anyway.
it arrived today, literally the next day. (earlier than the "estimated original scheduled date of 26th Aug")
Guess one way to beat expectations is to set the expected date way out there.
US-style power head.
it arrived today, literally the next day.
Is it shipped from the UK? How is it even possible? Wow.
@p1 ama: Oh. No sorry! From earlier post. I bought this one month ago with a similar deal from Amazon US that finally arrived after 1 month and 1 day.
Literally next day refers to my comment yesterday that it still hasn't arrived yet.
~$274.83 on Amazon China with free Prime shipping by the looks …
https://www.amazon.cn/gp/switch-language/product/B07VXKF1L4/…
That's a deal, good find.