About this item
Easy, add-on storage
High capacity in a compact design
Plug-and-play simplicity
USB 3.0 And USB 2.0 compatibility
CamelCamelCamel.
$24.92/TB
SSDs seem to be ~$75/TB and falling at about 25% per year - whilst HDDs are stuck at north of $20/TB
Project it forward and we'll see parity around 2027, unless hard disk manufacturers stop trying to keep prices the same for the next decade as they have for this. Spinning rust prices should have been falling sufficient to place this drive around $100-150.
The problem with SSDs is that for the same quality they're actually staying about the same, it's just that cheaper (but worse) ones are being developed. Usually about 4x the price for an SSD compared to HDD per TB.
10TB of el cheapo dram-less QLC NVMe SSD at $200, or 10TB of spinning rust?
Which are you going to pick?
In the end, ecking out HDD will mean the prices have to fall within 3 years to keep ahead of the solid state tsunami. Either that, or progress grinds to a halt.
Tape drives seem to have disappeared….
@sane: I'd probably take the 10TB HDD tbh, though it would depend on the specific SSD. I know annualised failure rates for SSDs across the board is considered ~1% and HDDs it's closer to ~3%, but i've personally been shitted off at SSDs failing with no warning, and with them burning through TBW (and thus losing warranty) wayyy too quick due to write amplification. Whereas HDDs, despite being kind of shit, have been a known quantity with pretty well known failure modes for 30 years of my exp with them.
Also, for off-site backup, i'd take the HDD over the SSD.
@ssfps: I've had hard disks fail. Multiple hard disks, from the same batch even …
SSDs have a lifetime, sure, but none have lost me data …… yet.
PS my first hard disk was a 20MB one - and I've had them die from every failure mode known to man - including losing the magic smoke. Give me something that's continuing to progress along a growth path rather than something that seems to have hit a brick wall - particularly when read ends up more important than write as capacity increases.
@sane: At least HDDs don't slow down to a crawl after big sequential writes. (Cheap) SSDs are decent for read heavy applications but they're not objectively better than HDDs in every scenario.
@BarneyKB: And SSDs are many multiples of HDD read speeds - different strokes for different use cases.
I'm just pointing out that this isn't a good price, and that the tide of history is likely to wipe out HDDs unless something changes.
$24.92/TB is about twice what it should be by now.
@sane: For sure, I do think they'll be wiped out eventually. I mean they're already essentially dead in the consumer space, as any new laptop will only have an SSD.
I've had hard disks fail. Multiple hard disks, from the same batch even
U-shaped failure curve is expected.
SSDs have a lifetime, sure, but none have lost me data …… yet.
SSDs can fail due to writes, but i think it's more common they die suddenly due to controller failure. I've not read this is as predictable as HDD's normal U-shaped failure curve.
My first HDD was 200MB, and my first SSD was 32GB. I'm a big fan of SSDs, but i've also had them fail, including "quality" samsungs - and when they fail, you generally get 0 warning and there is 0 chance of any recovery. This isn't a problem for me due to many years of proper backups, but it's still unsettling. I've never had a HDD fail instantly (as in, working fine with no SMART warning then a second later it's completely dead).
@sane: Tapes haven't disappeared at all, it just depends on how much data you have to store, for what purpose, for how long, and how often.
The LTO roadmap goes all the way up to LTO14 currently and LTO10 drives haven't even hit the market yet.
I'm currently backing up around 30TB per week with indefinite retention, and nothing can compete with tapes. I'm currently at the end of our LTO6 lifecycle and am looking to go to LTO9 or 10 at the end of the year depending on what's available, most likely sticking with the previous generations until the price per TB comes down on the native tapes for the new library.
We've specced out several cloud storage solutions and there isn't anything available currently that we can still guarantee will exist in 10-20 years that can compete with tapes on a per TB basis for long-term storage.
@sane: I would like to add that extremely cheap ssd’s with no cache are on par, or even slower than hdd’s.
Seems like normal price since Nov
+1
Best deal I could find for an External was on boxing day. 10TB for $222.35 https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/747721
yep bought one of those
Has been this price at Officeworks for weeks.
Can this be shucked?
Yes
Perfect! Thank you for the answer.
Reliability isn't that great. Bought 3 in December to shuck in my Nas and one already have smart error. Not sure if i can claim warranty now.
@crazyleo: For future keep the enclosures in good condition and you can just pop them back in to RMA.
@pinkybrain: I now have sceptical hippo eyes! I want to say no… but I can't be sure anymore! I've only shucked one drive and I purchased that off another guy who had shucked a bunch and when he sold it to me mentioned there was still a warranty, so to keep the enclosure if I had any issues. Also, I want to say that even if there was a "void if removed" sticker it isn't enforceable in Australia anyway, just like it's not enforceable in America.
Unless it's something more specific than that I couldn't be sure, but yeah, I've not heard of shucking voiding warranties, plenty of people mass-shuck drives and I imagine they go through the regular RMA process. Also if you return the drive to the big box store or amazon they're not going to check, they just swap them out for you.
Yep this is a long running deal - I bought one about 3 weeks ago after the 16Tb WD I bought from Amazon started clicking every 5 seconds.
These can be 'shucked' - the drive I got was a higher end drive as well, so a good deal for $299
do you need to do any trick like remove a pin in the sata cable or something when using it shucked?
Nope, not with the one I had - was a straight removal and insert into PC
thanks - i might get one then
Did it have screw holes on the underside or did you have to mount it with the side screws?
Is the case damaged after shucking or can it be used again?
Not damaged but it would be pretty hard to re-use - I have a feeling the circuit board you remove from the case is hard coded for that specific drive. You'd be better off just buying a cheap external enclosure
The case if you're careful can be removed damage free, just have to be careful with the clips.
The SATA to USB circuit board is not hard coded, at least the half dozen I've come across aren't.
only 2.5" ones hard coded
Is this a deal if it’s just regular ?
Anyone knows how to set up a home based “cloud” storage with this thing? Keen to know if there is an easy way to do it.
No affiliation, but check out NASCOMPARES as they are very helpful
Wouldn't it better to buy a QNAP NAS than a Western Digital Desktop HDD?
Reminds me of the tacos ad. “Why not both?”. QNAP NAS doesn’t come with drives, so get a couple of these shuckables ones and whack it in there. Don’t be tight, be a smart OzBargainer!
QNAP’s are expensive and you still need to buy the drives. I run a couple of these WD’s just plugged into a Raspberry PI running Plex and Open Media Vault. Cheap and effective media server has NAS. Each to their own.
Is Open Media Vault better than TrueNAS Core?
Sorry, delayed reply! Not 100% sure but Open Media Vault is great!
Is it possible to open the enclosure up and remove the 12TB HDD?
It is possible. The process is reffered as shucking. See comments above and check the 2 minute video guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xekv2Y2mmfQ
Meh, at that point I can just use the HDD attached to my router.
Huh?
I mean… even before that point you could have…. so why did you ask about opening up and removing if keeping it as an external was more worth while?
Back in stock!
likely PMing OW - https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/wd-element…