Everybody's favourite shuck is a great price at officeworks, close to its 2019/2020 price. Great deal for Australian stock (and plug) at $24.92/Tb.
Western Digital Elements 12TB 3.5" External Hard Drive $299 + Delivery ($0 to Metro Areas/ C&C/ in-Store) @ Officeworks
![](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/g/38.jpg)
Last edited 14/11/2022 - 15:04 by 1 other user
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Usually a WD RED Helium drive with a white label.
Oh damn!!
Actually a WD12EMFZ, which redditors claim to be a white-labelled, lower RPM DC HC530 14TB (yes, not 12TB, but a 14TB drive).
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/du0op4/is_the_…
There's been a while shucked drive contains a proper RED labelled drive. Large capacity enclosures are almost all marked-down DC drives now.
I got exactly this drive from Amazon UK in 2020 with marginally the same price.
Is longevity an issue with these 14TB drives with bad sectors?
@nfr: It's been with me for the last 2 years or so, 24/7 with spin-downs.
Still holding strong.
*I don't think it's binned down to 12TB because of bad sectors. *
@nfr: As far as I see it Officeworks are pretty good with covering you with warranty for them for at least 3 years. I had a 16tb Firecuda drive fail on me within a year, luckily I had only just recently backed everything up to another drive.
They replaced it on the spot for me even though the price had increased by more than $200 to $839. Ludacris pricing I know but glad knowing you have a safety net in case it turns out to be a dud. Especially since you can just drive to any local store and (provided they have stock) get it all resolved the same day.
Actually a WD12EMFZ
That Reddit post is from 3 years ago.
Pretty sure that stock has dried up and it's all now EDGZ which unfortunately are quite loud.
@HomeAlone: EDGZ is most common for 14TB. The suffix can be different between capacity. I don't think WD12EDGZ exist.
Just bought one and shucked it.
The drive is a WD120EDBZI also got a WD120EDBZ, can confirm. It's a 7200RPM CRM drive I believe.
@Sublimit: Yeah I had seen that too. I haven't actually shucked it, I just got the model name from the drive data. There is some noise from the drive, but it isn't very noticable over my laptop fans. I can hear the drive arm at times though. Just running a test on the drive now.
Better to price match Amazon when the price is lower than this?
If you need more storage this is an outstanding price, cheapest I've ever paid was roughly $270. I'd personally be happy to buy at this price than regret waiting to save a little more.
That said, we might see a better deal around the corner with black friday/cyber monday, but with the current prices I doubt it'll be much more than this.Yeah I share your sentiments and picked up two of these today.
I've been holding off for Black Friday and had been looking at past ozbargain history for the last couple years. Interestingly enough it didn't show as many great deals as I would have hoped.
In my opinion this years Prime day blew the last few Black Friday deals out of the water but then again you never know.
The group buy setup by neology has traditionaly been $200usd (and he said it might be lower this time) for 12+TB proper Ironwolf/exos/reds
translates to roughly 300audso might be a good alternative with no shucking
Hopefully! Holding out for another deal on the 18TBs. They were about $380 on Prime day.
Is the drive removable like the old one?
Yep usually have to do the pin mask unless you using old power connectors
So not normal SATA
Normal SATA plug, but new specification: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Fix-the-33V-Pin-Issue-i…
I didn't have this issue, but it's common enough you need to be aware of it when shucking.
@Switchblade88: Tested on my 3 Synology Nases (DS211, DS1812+, DS1819+) all don't need the tape mod.
3v3 line got used quite rarely.
@Switchblade88: I thought you were bringing up new information :( went through the entire page only to find out that it was just the start-up basics for shucked WDs.
CMR or SMR
CMR for this capacity
which capacity is SMR?
This or a Synology?
This product is just a hard drive in a plastic box with a USB connection and power supply. It needs to be plugged into a PC to be used.
Synology products are a stand-alone NAS, with its own computer and network connection in addition to one or more hard drives, and can operate independently of a PC.
As usual, which one is suitable to you depends on your needs and budget.
The Elements range is popular here because buying an external hard drive in an enclosure from a big box store such as Officeworks is paradoxically way cheaper than buying the same capacity hard drive bare from an IT wholesaler, because of the deep discounting and coupons retail stores often offer on old stock.
This is sometimes the cheapest way to get high-capacity hard drives - the process is called "shucking" as the shell is removed and discarded to get the good bit from the middle.
I have one of these in my Synology. I'm not sure of the version, mines a few years old, plugged into the NAS without issue, pin masking or any of that.
This or a Synology
You need both - this is the drive that goes into your Synology.
this is only an HDD with power supply but nothing else. It is NOT a NAS and CANNOT be accessed via network.
This one is good for cold storage instead of hot storage in my view.On some router you can use as network storage.
Same not a 14tb. Need a couple more of those
This gives a nice 10TB tho for all the OCD folk here.
:)
Get 5x12 or 5x 14 also does the same
Possible price match with JB and using the perks voucher? https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/wd-elements-desktop-12tb-…
Worth a shot for those who have the voucher. Thanks!
Just got the perks offer applied, Online chat price matched, the sales number declined the price match to limited stock.
Nice, so online chat is the way to go
Nor me .. they would not match due to Limited stock get out of jail card. Spoke with Muhammed
What's the perks voucher? Also does JB beat it by an X%?
Thank you friendo
Yep, online chat pricematch worked for me. Thanks!
They are no longer doing it unfortunately, something about restricted stock
Seems like price match is only good if you get in before corporate puts an end to it.
Will this fit in a ps4?
Nope, too fat.
Not necessarily in a PS4. You can plug it in a USB port and play games just fine.
Learn something new everyday, huh?
Thanks mate.
what is the max internal hdd?
The PS4 will fit into this.
Thats not how it works.
3.5 platter drives have been around for quite some time now. The only major change was a sata connector but they all still function and there's plenty of legacy tools if you want to access old drives.
Also - remember the golden rule: if you only have a backup in one place, you do not have a backup.
I’m sure you will have the chance to buy at least one more drive in that time.
Can I connect this to a RaspPi to have regular backups of photos/videos from our phones?
ThanksCan you connect to a Pi — Yes
Can you automatically back things up onto it from your phones — If you have software for that I guess? This won't do that automatically out of the box
Nextcloud will probably do that. The web ui response times won't be great on a Raspberry Pi, but it'll work.
why not just use google photo or onedrive or any other type of online storage site?
it's always good to have an offsite backup.
yes, I already have Google Photo, but wanted a backup solution, so one with me, and one online.
Make sure your Google account is syncing everything on to your PC, and then you can use this drive to take backups of your PC.
I'd like to add extra storage to my Reolink NVR.
It can be added via eSATA port
Is this the one?
You could get an eSATA adapter/cable and connect it to the shucked drive.
Not easily. You will have to remove the drive, get an eSATA to SATA cable and also then get power to the drive somehow and put it in a case.
It will work, but isn't just 'plug it in'
Got JB HI-FI to price match and got the $30 off $200 spend with JB Perks, cheers OP.
TOTAL: $269.00
Got rejected twice - Did you chat online with JB? What postcode did you provide them?
Thanks.
Just asked can you price match this product and copied both jb and office works links to product, it was done within 30 secs, custom link sent to me with new price and I could add the perks code on top of. No post code was requested at time of price match.
Then I opted for click and collect and it was ready to be picked up in 15 mins.
This was through online chat.
Just did it in store and they priced matched with the coupon
Online chat was useless, kept telling me they cannot price match due to limited stock.
Went to the JB Hifi store and got price matched with no issue.
what price did you pay??
can you use the perks discount?
My pleasure, glad you could snag it!
I was rejected reason being it is a "Limited Stock" at Officeworks.
Just got one at the Sydney Pitt st store. Lady at counter remarked they might not hav them in stock so these could go fast
Yea live chat rejected to due Officeworks' limited stock. Could try in store.
Ended up buying one from Officeworks, worried that might just go out of stock at OW quickly.
How would this be for installing games onto (prefer mechanical over ssd, capacity > load times). I was considering a WD 8TB Blue however this could be better?
Are you going to shuck it or leave it in the enclosure?
Shuck, put in an older gaming PC that I use for streaming games to my TV with the Nvidia Shield.
If you're shucking then I'd imagine this drive would be far superior. See Switchblade's comments below :D
@bertusaurus: Note that when your games are doing Steam updates you won't get anywhere near good speeds on a mechanical drive - some games can take upwards of half an hour to patch a billion small files on a mechanical drive.
White label helium drives are usually pretty quick, certainly faster than the WD Blue would be.
When empty and shucked, I was getting 250Mb/s. Currently down to 160Mb/s as the drives get filled.
Excellent, thanks!
I get from about 220MB/s down to about 150MB/s. Quite quick for a spinning drive.
Unfortunately the only time you see these large sequential transfer rates is at first install time… Once your games are on the drive, you'll find patching and updates are really slow, and in multiplayer games the SSD users often start the round whilst you're still loading 😁
@Nom: We just use them for work backups, so the transfer rates are fine for us. If gaming I would go SSD all the way.
Talked myself into finally picking up some more storage, price is good enough. Thanks for the heads up OP.
Maybe the opposite of many here.
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What's the drive inside we shucking for?