We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
I have about a dozen dead wd white labels, all clicked/faulted right around the 3-5 year mark. (Out of 41 disks across 3 servers).
Looking back, the small discount from shucking was not worth it in long run. These are subpar drives.
Just my personal two cents.
I have three that don’t even power around anymore for no reason when I can’t figure out why
2/8 for me at about the 5 year mark.
If you bought those all at once, sounds like a bad manufacturing batch.
I have 2x8TB, 2x10TB 2x12TB, 2x18TB and 14TB, all shucked. No issues. the 8TB's are at 6 years powered on too.
I think you have environmental issues at play. That failure rate is incredibly abnormal.
I agree. 2x6tb, 2x10tb, 8x8 going strong for 6 years 24/7 operation now. All easy store shucks. I just installed 8 18tb from server parts deals in my new NAS as well no issues a few weeks in.
Yeah before shucking got popular the white labels were helium filled and the 14tb and 10tb drives required the 3 pin tape mod on all my evga and Corsair psus. I won’t be buying wd to shuck again. I’ve had good luck with seagate expansion drives which are actually labeled exos or ironwolfs which are supported with firmware updates from seagate. Warranty claims also isn’t an issue I worry about with seagate.
I’m coming up to the 4 year mark on my wd white labels and they’re a hassle.
I have 8 WD whitelabels that are all around 5 years old. None dead yet but I may have just gotten lucky so far. I'm going to buy 2 of these to start replacing the old ones.
Honestly at this point I'm buying used drives. I have redundancy anyway, and if I get a 50% discount for buying used and have to buy 10% more drives for extra redundancy, that still comes up Milhouse.
This is all anecdotal evidence.
I’ve got 8-8TB, 8-12TB, and 3-14TB drives (all white label shucks) bought between 7yrs ago and now. The 8TBs were all bought over 5yrs and no failures. I’ve had 1 -12TB die recently, it was at the 3yr mark.
So for someone who currently relies on external drives, you wouldn't recommend this? Would that be all WD easystores or just the 18tb? I've still got a ways to go before migrating to internals so I can't really afford much more than the $200 thus far
so are these drives worth it? I mean the price is nice but is the quality worth it?
I'm interested but don't want something to die out. I suppose my other question is what is normal life expectancy if 4/5 years is considered bad.
Meanwhile the same 18TB is $499.99 CAD in Canada...
Don't need this... ok I'll buy just 1
Do these have the 3.3v pin issue?
I bought two. One to give me room for another 900 movies on Plex and another to back them up. I should be good for awhile.
Sigh, I just bought the 14tb last weekend. I could return it and buy this though…
Return it?
$11.11/TB, pretty screaming $/TB right there
That's what I did first too haha 😂 anything below $13 is worth investigation!
Anyone know the exact model of drive?
I really don't need to know this...
yeah id get it for future data things but idk what i need it for
Off site backup for your existing data, in case of disaster.
Sorry to burn $200, but you'll thank me later when disaster strikes... living in an area where five neighboring cities all burnt to the ground in the course of 24 months (in the three worst wildfires in California history, back-to-back-to-back)... I have experience here.
Hoohoo, $400 CAD up in the great white north. a whopping $50 off lol.
We had the 14TB one onsale for $240 last week which wasnt too bad.
That was a Seagate 14tb external, not a WD.
aw shucks!
I'm in Canada. In August, I bought the WD easystore 14TB for $299 (Best Buy). The current "Black Friday" price is $399.
Wow I bought something there a few days ago and it was way cheaper than the current "sale" too. Pretty sleazy.
Err, the current black friday price for the 14tb WD easystore is $239 CAD at Bestbuy.ca and being matched by others and has been ongoing for several days. The thread for the deal is many pages long at redflagdeals.
For those not in the know we have a website in Canada, extremely popular called redflagdeals. I don't think I am allowed to post the full link. Want to know about any consumer level deal as well as millions of other things - it is the place. The Hot Deals forum section is a daily staple in the lives of millions of Canadians.
It is somewhat tempting, but I bought six 18tb drives a few years ago. I have already replaced half of them. My nine 8tb drives have been much more reliable.
FWIW WD is having a "buy 2 18TB Red Pro drives for $549" sale right now
https://www.westerndigital.com/products/internal-drives/wd-red-pro-sata-hdd?sku=WD181KFGX
$25 extra for a Red Pro drive & not having shuck seems like a good value to me
Where I live I can't even get a 4TB one for that price
I hate my country
18 TB? Amateurs.
Just ordered 3. Thanks for the posting.
What a fucking deal!
if I didn't have a 16TB version, I might go for it.
I actually quite regret buying it earlier cause damnnnnn.
Absolutely don't need it, but I want it.
Are these ok for colder storage use that may get pulled and check maybe 2x a year?
Thinking about buying 2 and shucking them
i stopped shucking with last years 18 tb seagate exos from server parts deals for 194 each but still buy externals for back ups. are the 18 tb wd externals particularly unreliable? i have good luck with wd externals and i have a whole shelf of them. only 1 12 tb died with in 2 years and had to be rmaed. had some 8s and 3tbs die but at the 5 plus year mark and i was phasing them out anyway. i still have 3 tb elements that still worked last that checked
What drive is inside?
About 275 Canadian Pesos for those keeping track. Wish we had the prices you guys south of the border seem to get!
In the past I've given up buying locally and instead bulk ordered drives in the US and shipping to a US address, then package-forwarding them over the border. Saved quite a lot, duties on HDDs aren't that high!
Very tempting, but the reliability is concerning me a lot
Should I buy this or wait for a better deal? I was waiting until Black Friday season to get a new hard drive
According to the Best Buy webpage, this IS the Black Friday deal.