This deal is back! https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/748808
A few dollars more than the last deal. Free shipping from Amazon US. Prime membership not required.
CamelCamelCamel.
I mean it's not a bad price, but is it the best price ever?
Check CamelCamelCamel
It's a red pro so that is pretty good
As far as I can see, you don't need to buy two of the same thing to get 5% off - you can just add something like a Fiskars tool (e.g. https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B001A42CTW) for free.
Doesn't get you much savings though
IronWolf Pro available for the same price https://www.amazon.com.au/Seagate-IronWolf-SATA-64MB-Cache1/…
I grabbed the Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB last week - exactly the same price (and still the same price).
From what I understand they're very similar… hopefully I made the right choice 😂.
I run both IronWolf and WD Red, 8TB non-Pro. They're both solid, with 1000+ hours of power-on time.
In need of 2 more drives for NAS.
Does anyone know how well are these packed being shipped from US? Also how would the warranty work- Amazon gives us a free shipping label to send it back?
I got mine not packed very well. If worried, I'd pay a little more for the 16TB external WD drive (currently $440) https://www.amazon.com.au/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-D…
You might as well wait for a discount on the 18tb and 20tb models, which have both been near that price regularly.
Drives come in the usual anti-static bags, but packaged in individual cardboard boxes with plastic inserts each end that allow some movement, but not too much. Those will just ship in a thin plastic satchel though.
That said, had one DOA recently. Not detected. Removed the cage and placed on top the case so I could hear it. Not sure if off balance or what. Guess never powered up a loose drive like that, but very weird gyroscopic feeling.
Anyway, to return, don't even need a label. Just take to an Amazon parcel drop off point and they add one. Believe they still claim that refunds are issued after they get it, but as soon as scanned in, got a notification. Nothing on card yet though.
In my experience drives are either DOA or fail just outside of warranty. So not sure how returns work months/years down the line.
As for the price. Lowest I've seen, although it has mostly been this price since the 15th.
There is also the 18TB WD external for similar $ per TB: Currently $477. https://www.amazon.com.au/Western-Digital-Elements-Desktop-D…
Also, 18TB Red Pro $484.82, 2 for $921.16
Annoying thing about the Red drives, especially the big capacities, 20TB or 22TB, they only have 300TB r/w endurance per year vs 550TB on the Gold/Ultrastar. As-well as 1million hrs MTBF vs 2.5million on the Gold/US.
300TB can be used up pretty quick if you run regular scrubbing. Monthly scrubbing of a 20TB drives leaves you with 60TB of r/w a year of actual reads and writes. Fill up and read the drive twice in a year and you've used 320TB and WD could deny any warranty.
It's 300TB/yr for Ironwolf Pro also.
The average user should just set their scrubbing frequency to something between 2 and 6 months rather than fuss about buying Gold/Ultrastar drives.
There's two Ironwolf Pro models per capacity, one is 300/1 the other 550/2.5
eg. 20TB Ironwolf Pro
ST20000NEZ00 is 300/1
ST20000NTZ01 is 550/2.5
Both models same price on Amazon
Now I understand why people shuck drives. If you plan to scrub regularly then it makes sense to buy the cheapest drive available and just eat the expense if it fails in the warranty period. The price difference between this and the Ultrastar is about $300.
Interestingly enough though the Ultrastar drives are on sale on catch.com.au:
https://www.catch.com.au/product/wd-ultrastar-dc-hc550-16tb-…
What does scrubbing do?
@Scrobo: Checks the file system for errors and corrects them if possible. Exact specifics would depend on the file system and disk configuration.
Thanks for writing this. I assumed that the numbers listed were the same as SSD specs and only counted writes not reads.
Is that supposed to be a good price? $420 is quite a bit of ashkay