Western Digital Elements External Hard Drives: 1TB Portable USB 3.0 HDD $64, 2TB USB 2.0 HDD $84, 3TB USB 2.0 HDD $104 After Rebates

Quote from celeritini : you can NOT expect a 7200rpm drive, if that's your hope, LOL I cracked two seagate expansion USB 3.0 3TB - the old version (the case with a little angle rather than the straight rectangle box), i remember it's either a WD or a Seagate's 5400rpm drive. forgot to take a photo and the drivers were put into a server... so.. sorry

I've bought a couple of Hitachi Touro externals (one Pro, one not) and both were 7200 RPM drives. Guess I'll stick to those.

Sweet...thanks op!

Quote from vip00 : I've bought a couple of Hitachi Touro externals (one Pro, one not) and both were 7200 RPM drives. Guess I'll stick to those.

awesome, good for you,
my impression was that WD and Seagate external HDDs, are using cheap drives inside, very rarely, there was a 7200rpm drive (that info i read was written about in 2009 or 2010 i guess); but Hitachi.... kind of unpredictable, its manufacturer lines seemed very mixed up to me... (not messed up, LOL)

Quote from Iron_Chin : Don't care about the speed. Just need a large HDD to store my HD Blu Ray rips. I currently have 2 2TB's and a 1.5 TB LOL

lots of blu-ray, man,
but if not, then what's your concern, it'll be a 3TB drive inside, if you buy that 3TB external HDD...

Quote from Iron_Chin : I am curious as well. I want to crack it for the 3TB drive. Don't need the external case.

yep, and flip the enclosure off locally, or on ebay, LOL
they are quite expensive if you want to buy them separately, right?

Quote from calistyle : In before the Black Friday comments.

now i regretted that i didn't pay any attention to HDD deals back then, sigh...

Quote from efaraband : Good deals. Would have been nicer if the 2TB and 3TB were USB 3.0 though

Yes, but...

The USB3 drives come with the obnoxious hard-to-find special cable/connector (which reportedly tends to fail early), while the USB2 drives still use the standard mini (micro?) usb cables that are easy to find, available in different lengths, and seemingly robust.

Obviously, if you have a computer that can really drive at USB3 speeds, USB3 for these volumes of data...can't argue with you.

But for me, the more common cable wins the day.

Quote from Wickywik : The two 2TB WD Elements drives I've cracked open have had WD green drives inside.

More importantly are the drives soldered to the usb controller or are they bare drives with the sata and power connections connected to a usb controller with those standard ports?

I ask because I have heard that WD has started to solder many of their drives lately...

A few years ago I was using MyBooks. Took the drive out of the enclosure. Worked fine for about 6 months then failed. When I called up WD they told me that the drive was not available for service since it was inside an enclosure and sold as an external. The SN on the internal and the external enclosure didn't match and that's how they knew I opened mine up.

Long story short - opening the enclosure cost me my warranty. Does anyone know if that is still the case today?

Quote from bjsguess : A few years ago I was using MyBooks. Took the drive out of the enclosure. Worked fine for about 6 months then failed. When I called up WD they told me that the drive was not available for service since it was inside an enclosure and sold as an external. The SN on the internal and the external enclosure didn't match and that's how they knew I opened mine up. Long story short - opening the enclosure cost me my warranty. Does anyone know if that is still the case today?

definitely, once you opened the case, whether you break any clips or brackets on the enclosure or not, your warranty is gone,
usually, manufacturer would put some sticker at one or two screwers or connection edge between two pieces of the case, or somewhere that if you need to open the case, you are gonna break that little sticker/seal. that's usually how they know whether you cracked your case or not.
even in your case, you just called them up, and even you give them the right SN # or something, when claiming the warranty, usually the drive needs to be mailed back or returned to retail store, so.... they'd inspect it before issuing you replacement

did a quick search on google and didn't turn up much, but does anyone know the difference between a WD elements and WD Mybook?? which one is better?

I really need to upgrade my 500GB drive that is at capacity. Now that we own a digital camcorder, we need something much larger. I'm thinking of the 3TB drive, as it is a great price.

The USB 2.0 isn't too big of an issue, since our main laptop doesn't have 3.0, and when we dump the 16GB cards, it would only take 5 minutes (assuming maximum speed) to copy, which I can live with.

True. I have found that the USB 3.0 does transfer a heck of a lot faster, and even though i only have one computer that can handle it now, im sure ill get another pc in the near future, and would love to be able to transfer at higher speeds.
Plus, there are so many deals on externals now, im sure something will pop up in the near future.

But good deals still. Thumbs up!

good deal but as many others have said, the rebate and recent $90/3TB deals does not make this a must buy, unless you need storage badly.

Quote from celeritini : 2012 TD InnerCircle FREE

When did this deal happen? Sounds like an awesome find.

In for two, 500GB @ USB 3.0 and 1TB @ USB 3.0. Thanks OP!

P.S. Agree with others about being lukewarm to USB 2.0 versions for 2TB and 3TB hard drives.