** Uh...Best Buy $120 External 8TB Hard Drives actually have $250 WD Red Drives Inside?!?!

bam2413

bam2413

Getting the hang of it
Nov 6, 2019
52
41
Minnesota
So I bought a few of these EasyStore 8TB External Hard Drives a while back from Best Buy as they are super cheap at Best Buy ($119) right now: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-8tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/5792401.p?skuId=5792401

Happened to plug one of them in today and CrystalDiskInfo showed the hard drive has a model number of WD80EFAX ($239) which is a Western Digital 8TB Red Drive with 256MB Cache Size: WD Red NAS Hard Drive

CrystalDisk.jpg

Plugged 2 my other EasyStore drives and they have the same exact drive. I took the hard drives out of 2 of the external casings and installed them in my BI server. Went from having 3TB of storage for 10 cams to 16TB of storage. $720.00 in hard drives for $257.00!!!

I thought I would share this with you guys!!!! I am off to my local Best Buy to grab a couple more.
 
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I wonder if the fact that they are 2+ years old has anything to do with the pricing... That said I would jump on a similar deal for 10tb units.
 
ctgoldwing said:
I wonder if the fact that they are 2+ years old has anything to do with the pricing... That said I would jump on a similar deal for 10tb units.
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No, they've frequently been "on sale" for a significant discount - usually once a month or so. The 12TB drives have recently hit a new sweet spot price-wise when on sale, so the lower capacities are finally dropping a little further than before.

See many threads like:



and:



I've had a handful in service in FreeNAS builds and have zero complaints. I have a 12TB in my personal BI server, also with zero complaints.
 
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DavidR1 said:
No, they've frequently been "on sale" for a significant discount - usually once a month or so. The 12TB drives have recently hit a new sweet spot price-wise when on sale, so the lower capacities are finally dropping a little further than before.

See many threads like:



and:



I've had a handful in service in FreeNAS builds and have zero complaints. I have a 12TB in my personal BI server, also with zero complaints.
Click to expand...


Huge resource, thanks DavidR1
 
Happy to share a pointer to it; many kind people put a lot of work in already collecting and sharing their experiences - They're the ones that deserve all the thanks. :)

So long as you know what you're getting into (warranty length and potential hassle if you need to file a claim, possible 3.3v pin work-around), I think they're hard to beat for the price. Like with any drive, if you value your data, you perform regular backups and leverage RAID where potential downtime is a concern. I haven't used any of the 8, 10, or 12TB drives in the provided enclosure for any length of time beyond initial testing prior to shucking them. I've always used the drives in systems with proper airflow. As such, I can't speak to their reliability if used as-is (for those who might actually want an external drive).

FWIW, the 12TB are currently on sale for only slightly more per TB for anyone that wants extra space in fewer bays. I've only received "white label" 12TB drives to date but they've proven to be just as reliable as the Reds for me and many others - just note the 3.3v pin information in case it affects your use case. Larger drives are of course "more eggs in one basket" should you experience a failure but again - backups.
 
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DavidR1 said:
Happy to share a pointer to it; many kind people put a lot of work in already collecting and sharing their experiences - They're the ones that deserve all the thanks. :)

So long as you know what you're getting into (warranty length and potential hassle if you need to file a claim, possible 3.3v pin work-around), I think they're hard to beat for the price. Like with any drive, if you value your data, you perform regular backups and leverage RAID where potential downtime is a concern. I haven't used any of the 8, 10, or 12TB drives in the provided enclosure for any length of time beyond initial testing prior to shucking them. I've always used the drives in systems with proper airflow. As such, I can't speak to their reliability if used as-is (for those who might actually want an external drive).

FWIW, the 12TB are currently on sale for only slightly more per TB for anyone that wants extra space in fewer bays. I've only received "white label" 12TB drives to date but they've proven to be just as reliable as the Reds for me and many others - just note the 3.3v pin information in case it affects your use case. Larger drives are of course "more eggs in one basket" should you experience a failure but again - backups.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the 3.3v pin info. This wasn't an issue with my older drives. Went and picked up a couple more today, haven't broke into them yet but this info will help alot. Looks like a little heat tape on the 3rd pin and we're good to go.
 
I know that purple drives are generally regarded the best for surveillance. Pretty much what they're designed for. Just wondering how folks feel about using red instead. I was in the process of looking for a drive for use in either an NVR or a PC for use with BI. Tempted to use one of these, but quite frankly, don't want to regret it down the road.
 
Rickoo said:
I know that purple drives are generally regarded the best for surveillance. Pretty much what they're designed for. Just wondering how folks feel about using red instead. I was in the process of looking for a drive for use in either an NVR or a PC for use with BI. Tempted to use one of these, but quite frankly, don't want to regret it down the road.
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I've been running 5 reds in my Synology NAS for years and never had a failure. Yesterday I found a 'deal' on shucking the 10tb unit from a usb desktop drive and ordered 4. With tax they came to ~$160 each iirc plus an approx 15% credit on my Amazon Prime acct
 
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This is from Western Digital about Purple:

The Surveillance drives from WD are designed and optimized specifically for recording surveillance or other video footage. In many ways the Surveillance line is very similar to the NAS Storage line except that the Purples drives use the "AllFrame Technology" firmware which is designed to reduce error pixilation and video interruptions that occur when desktop hard drives are incorrectly used as storage in security systems.

I have no idea how significant or insignificant "AllFrame Technology" is in real life situations. I assume your using the NAS for recording camera video? Ever notice deficiencies in video playback?
 
I never noticed any issue with the video. Until a few days ago I was concurrently running Synology's Surveillance Station (on 2 4k cameras) along with BI on those same cameras plus 2 1080P units.
 
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So is okay to have an external hdd to continuous recording from BI ? (11 ip cams) or stick with a internal one?
Till now i have just a 2 tb hdd drive internal , but fills up quick so i need to get a bigger hdd.

Regards,
 
You could get lucky with a USB connection and have no issues but I read that some people had connectivity issues after a while. I would connect it internally to be safe.
 
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patrocle said:
So is okay to have an external hdd to continuous recording from BI ? (11 ip cams) or stick with a internal one?
Till now i have just a 2 tb hdd drive internal , but fills up quick so i need to get a bigger hdd.

Regards,
Click to expand...

Best to remove drive from housing, you can easily do so without damaging housing, check on YouTube for best method.

Here is just one for example...

 
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