1TB Seagate Expansion USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive (STBX1000101) $63 + Free Shipping with V.me by Visa

Two notes:
1) You do NOT need to have a Visa card to checkout using V.me; any credit card should work.
2) If you do not want to checkout with V.me for some reason, the price will be $69.99. The code posted above simply takes off 10% and is only valid for people using V.me.

Hope this helps,
Tofu Vic

Any reason to buy a Seagate when WD Passports cost the same amount on a regular basis?

(Aside from the ability to remove the Seagate from the casing, whereas WD cannot be removed without desoldering?)

I like how the deals I've seen this past month have all been better than almost everything on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Even the ones that don't make the front page.

Quote from spydersdeals69 : Any reason to buy a Seagate when WD Passports cost the same amount on a regular basis? (Aside from the ability to remove the Seagate from the casing, whereas WD cannot be removed without desoldering?)

That's seems to be rather important to a lot of people here.

Quote from calistyle : That's seems to be rather important to a lot of people here.

I don't really understand why that is. You can buy a quality WD Black for that purpose and know exactly what you're getting, rather than risk opening up a portable and having junk inside. Hell, I just picked up two 1TB WD Blue notebook drives for this exact price last week at OD and during the BBY $50 off event, they were even cheaper.

Makes no sense to me.

Quote from spydersdeals69 : I don't really understand why that is. You can buy a quality WD Black for that purpose and know exactly what you're getting, rather than risk opening up a portable and having junk inside. Hell, I just picked up two 1TB WD Blue notebook drives for this exact price last week at OD and during the BBY $50 off event, they were even cheaper. Makes no sense to me.

WD Black only makes 2.5" 7200 RPM drives in sizes up to 750 GB.

There are very few 1 TB 7200 RPM 2.5" drives... the only company which sells them bare is HGST.

I don't know why you don't understand why people always like to tear them apart. Portable hard drive prices are almost always cheaper per GB than bare drives because of deals and coupons.

Your comparison with the 1 TB WD Blue, which is $90 at OD + $10 Filler - $50 BB Coupon isn't very good. That's an exceptional deal... almost on par with clearance prices because of the huge coupon.

The cheapest price I've seen on a 1 TB 5400 RPM 2.5" HD is this previous deal.

Almost all external portables have 5400 RPM drives inside, unless specified otherwise. Usually they are the exact same, or nearly the same model # as the equivalent bare drive from the manufacturer.

The lone exception is the HGST Touro 1 TB Model #: 0S03559, which has sold for $79.99, and has a 7200 RPM drive inside.

Also... not relevant to this deal... but external desktop and portable hard drives go on clearance a lot more than bare drives because they come out with different styling, USB 2.0 ---> USB 3.0, etc. I've scored 1 TB 2.5" HDs for as low as $18 on clearance.

Quote from TDMVP73 : WD Black only makes 2.5" 7200 RPM drives in sizes up to 750 GB. There are very few 1 TB 7200 RPM 2.5" drives... the only company which sells them bare is HGST. I don't know why you don't understand why people always like to tear them apart. Portable hard drive prices are almost always cheaper per GB than bare drives because of deals and coupons. Your comparison with the 1 TB WD Blue, which is $90 at OD + $10 Filler - $50 BB Coupon isn't very good. That's an exceptional deal... almost on par with clearance prices because of the huge coupon. The cheapest price I've seen on a 1 TB 5400 RPM 2.5" HD is this previous deal. Almost all external portables have 5400 RPM drives inside, unless specified otherwise. Usually they are the exact same, or nearly the same model # as the equivalent bare drive from the manufacturer. The lone exception is the HGST Touro 1 TB Model #: 0S03559, which has sold for $79.99, and has a 7200 RPM drive inside. Also... not relevant to this deal... but external desktop and portable hard drives go on clearance a lot more than bare drives because they come out with different styling, USB 2.0 ---> USB 3.0, etc. I've scored 1 TB 2.5" HDs for as low as $18 on clearance.

I got the WD Blues at OD just last week.

$90 - 30% off coupon = $63. (Actually free because of ink. )

The BestBuy ones were < $50, but that was a steal.

I suppose that real question is why buy a crappy Seagate and bother with the hassle of opening and voiding the warranty when WD is same price with no effort involved? (I realize there's no time machine built yet, so no going back for OD or BBY deal, but there are still deals out there to be had on a fairly regular basis.)

Quote from spydersdeals69 : I got the WD Blues at OD just last week. $90 - 30% off coupon = $63. (Actually free because of ink. ) The BestBuy ones were < $50, but that was a steal. I suppose that real question is why buy a crappy Seagate and bother with the hassle of opening and voiding the warranty when WD is same price with no effort involved? (I realize there's no time machine built yet, so no going back for OD or BBY deal, but there are still deals out there to be had on a fairly regular basis.)

Yeah, but again, the 30% off coupon probably wasn't even meant for hard drives. When do you ever see OD coupons without full tech exclusions?

Answer: Never.

You can rarely find the WD Blue 2.5" 1 TB 5400 RPM bare drive for less than $75 on sale.

The best two prices on it in the last 6 months were:
$68
$75

Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba are basically the only 3 HDD manufacturers left anymore. You clearly have a preference for WD drives, but that doesn't mean they perform better or are more reliable.

I'm somewhat of a hard drive junkie. I have so many 2.5", 3.5", portable and desktop externals... I've lost count. Typically I look for dirt cheap deals and stock up because you can never have too many hard drives.

In the last 15 years, I've had 6 drive failures. Of those 6: 2 were Western Digital, 1 was Seagate, and 2 were Maxtor (prior to Seagate's acquisition).

I have no complaints with any of the Seagate drives I've purchased, either bare, in pre-built computers, or torn from portables. As for the warranty being voided, you're right. But what are the odds you're going to make a warranty claim anyways in the 2 years you get with the WD Blue?

Probably pretty slim. Most hard drives last at least 3 to 5 years. Not even to mention the fact that you are sending WD a hard drive full of potentially sensitive data, with no guarantee you'll get it back.