3TB Western Digital WD Elements USB 2.0 External Hard Drive $99.99 After Rebate + S&H
 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=556458

$99.99 After Rebate + Shipping

3TB Western Digital WD Elements USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (WDBAAU0030HBK-NESN) $105 after $30 rebate
 

TigerDirect has 3TB Western Digital WD Elements USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (WDBAAU0030HBK-NESN) for $130 - $30 rebate = $100. Offer valid today only. Shipping is ~$5. Thanks scmr2

Price Research: Our research indicates that 3TB Western Digital WD Elements USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (WDBAAU0030HBK-NESN) is $14 lower (12% savings) than the next best available price from a reputable merchant with prices ranging from $119 to $155. - yuugotserved

This post can and should be edited by users like you :)
 

Internal drive is a 5400 rpm Western digital Green Drive.

Ebay seller link removed. non-verified account

"The listing has items being sold without the owner's authorization. You didn't bid."
--you just got scammed.

Mail-in rebate...

Latest opinions on TD rebates? Safe or not?

I've done quite a bit of them and have received all my TD rebates. All of them on time.

pretty safe

how difficult to crack it open and use it as an internal drive?

Very easy. No screws at all. Just wedge it with a flat screwdriver and it pops open. It is a WD Green drive inside. No warranty stickers to break either.

cool...repped

It is pretty easy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZUMh_H3B_Y

with 7% cash back, it is like $90 for a 3TB. good deal.

usb 2.0 slow.

I have a feeling most people will just crack the case and use the bare drive, rendering that a moot point.

Anyone know which HDD is inside specifically?

Still waiting on my RMA replacement from the last time this drive went front page. If you order, make sure you run the extended scan with Data Lifeguard [wdc.com].

very safe these days... I got about 20 in the mail over the last week.. 1 was denied for BS reasons...so I have to call and find out what the deal is and resubmit my scans bc I know 100% it is spot on... but I dont expect any problems getting it approved when I resubmit my stuff...

7% where? be cryptic since sd blocks most
prob a green drive... wish it was the black caviar that we got in the 2TBs back in the day... still my favorite drives going strong 2 years later....

The router I'm plugging it into is only 2.0 anyway. :dunno:

114 after rebate after shipping and tax, no thanks. 3tb is cheaper on amazon, with Prime and no rebates.

I don't care but 7200 rpm, please!

I got one of these right around the time that the Tsunami hit Japan; just before the prices of hard drives went up. It has proven to be a reliable drive. I use it as a backup drive for my Mac, using Time Machine.

It wasn't Tsunami in Japan that caused the prices to go up :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07...d=all&_r=0

great deal... thx op

I spent 119.99 during black friday event for USB 3. So, 20 bucks less for USB 2. So I guess its a OK deal.

Oh yeah. With both disasters within such a short time frame of each other, I got the cause of the hard drive shortage confused. The Tsunami was the cause of other electronics shortages. Was it iPhone components?

Anyhow, disasters aside, the hard drive seems solid so far.

Car components :D:D

USB 2.0 is OK for backup and archiving.

Please don't make things up. There is no drive in amazon for that price or lower.

If there is, please grace us with a link.

Thanks needed that

Right. I thought there was also a question of whether there would be enough iPhone cameras, as they are made in Japan.

What did you pay?

LOL usb 2.0!!! is this 2000?

Safe, I've done over 10 of them, most were FAR, and I received every single one of them. Some take longer and some you will received pretty early even though I mailed them at the same time. At the latest, you won't received it until the 10th week if you choose the non express processing method to get the full value of the rebate.

I checked and couldn't find any. Can you post a link?

I am getting $139 for 3TB on Amazon, where do you see it cheaper? Maybe I am looking at the wrong hdd

It took a few years for 2.0 to catch on. Still, 4 years later, we're just begining to see a surge of 3.0 devices gain consumer popularity.

For mass storage and media, 2.0 interface is perfectly capable. A HDD doesnt come close to saturating the 3.0 bandwidth anyway

and how do you get 7% cashback? I don't see anything through Bing rewards.

Most people like me will take out the HDD and use it as SATA in a PC or NAS. I dont think using this as SATA would be that slow...

Tough to recall. If from Costco, probably $90 to $100. If from Staples, it probably started out around $100 and I knocked the price down with coupons and ink rewards. I know I had gotten it from a SD thread, so some searching might help. I better get back to work though.

Try Google. It's what everyone else in the world uses.

So basically the deal is gone or hard to get. I do remember Costco had 3TB External HDD during Black Friday for $100. No point in referencing that now just like keep saying pre-Thailand flooding HDD prices were so low compared to now.

I never brought up the point of what I paid before I was asked. My post was originally about that I liked the drive as a backup drive. After that, I only responded to other people's posts which responded to mine.

Now that you mention it, though, isn't it strange that over a year after the flood, with PC sales dropping (less demand for hard drives, as opposed to flash memory) and with technology moving forward, that the very same 3 TB hard drive is still more expensive than it was pre-flood, over 14 months ago?

Perhaps it is since you still think "LOL" is clever.

Usb 2.0
 

Agreed. Who's using an external drive for real-time access to applications anyway? Don't most people use external drives for storage/backup? :confused:

hahahahahah usb 2.0 for this price and size

no

Good deal for those of us who don't care about USB 3.0.... Hopefully, cashback comes in. Thanks, OP!

Does anyone know if this bare HDD can be used with 2TB WD20EARX on a Synology 212j NAS ????

Is it a 3.5" or 2.5"

good deal, thanks and repped!

can anyone confirm this is 7200 rpm pls ?
"WDBAAU0030HBK-NESN" on google didn't yield any RPM info but only Data Transfer Rate on USB : up to 480 Mbps.

all I see is this

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002QEB...V6JTSZ3Y3&

129 for amazon.

3.5" drive.

It's 3.5"

I don't remember the exact model but it's a Green drive so it's basically 5400RPM.

If it were 2.5" 3 TB for 100 bucks, it would'nt have seen the light of the day. I would've snatched at least 20

The seagate 3tb external is usb3 and is a fast 7200rpm barracuda inside, it's been on sale for 129 at various places and still is. I wish it were $100 though.

Those that need usb3 and 7200rpm should watch for that model to come down.

External drives aren't just for backup, unless you get something so freakin slow you can only use it for backup.

oops double post

I bought one about two weeks ago and took the drive out. It was this exact internal drive. I use it as a media drive for my HTPC

http://www.amazon.com/Western-Dig...B004RORMF6

TD tempting......

(corrected your post)

I had two of them and they both went bad inside of 2 yrs with infrequent use:(

2.0 kills it, even at this price. Maybe $100 without a rebate I'd consider it.

USB 3.0 is amazing, I can transfer from USB 3.0 to USB 3.0 way faster than any transfer involving SATA 3.0. When I have a USB 3.0 external I don't even have the desire to try to fit another drive it in my case any more.

I opened mine up and am trying to use it as an internal drive on my XPS 8500 i7 with the Intel H 77 mother board and the system sees the drive as 3TB but will only allow me to format it as a 2TB volume, hoping Dell tech support can help because I've verified everything I found online (SATA = ACHI, MB supports high capacity, it's read in BIOS correctly)

This requires an external power adapter( included ) if that wasn't already obvious for everybody.

Needs to be initialized as GPT, you will get the full 3TB then (Well, 2.79)

hate rebates but need the space... thank you!

My WD 2GB just sudden broke, and looks exactly like this 3GB black box here... I will save money to build a RAID from now on.

These are WD Green Drives, 5400 rpm.
One of the quietest drives out there.
But they also have not-so-great reviews.
Can read newegg or amazon reviews on WD green drives.
But personally, i've been using them for years and haven't had a problem.
Guess it depends on your luck of the draw.

And remember to initialize/convert as GPT format if using via SATA. (Start, Right click Computer, manage, disk management, right click the 3TB Drive letter.)

Thanks for the reminder. I just bought one of these 2 weeks ago. Need to complete the rebate form.

dont use green cavs in RAID

does the drive inside have a warranty if/when its pulled out?

No they do not. The warranty is for an external drive :3
If you actually look up the serial number on the WD website to see if it has any warranty, it will flat out tell you that it was part of an external drive and is not covered if it was taken out.

thank you

Nice!!

Why does the damn rebate have to limit the number per household.. I am itching for a reason to order 6x 3 or 4 tb drives & upgrade the capacity in my WHS

Seagate Alternative
 

The seagate that's been mentioned a couple of times is this one, Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive (STCA3000101) (as per amazon). It's a 7200 rpm drive so it's speedier than this WD green drive, if only technically. $120, no rebates and eligible for SS shipping if you're patient. for $15 more and no rebates I'm seriously considering this for expanding my HTPC since i'm 85% full of 5 TB. Plenty of experience with WD green and while they're in my HTPC I'm not complaining about their performance. After the storage increase i'm looking to ditch the Athalon x2 3600 chip in there for something, er, this decade. Any suggestions?

wish i had that kinda money :D. Thanks for thinking high of me lol

this is not a portable drive, is it?

For a media server? You can buy a used core2quad based Xeon x3210 socket 775 sever processor for about $25 shipped on ebay. Works in any core2quad supporting motherboard. Hard to beat the performance for the price, and they overclock if you like, but you may not need that kind of performance on a home net.

AND your point is??????????? People buying this is not using it for an OS.....

Is this the nice type of WD external drive that you can remove from the enclosure and use as a normal internal drive without any issues?

Edit:

Nevermind, I see faideelah already answered that question, and the answer is Yes!!

With no warranty though...

What?

If you're planning on leaving the machine on 24/7, I'd go with an atom-based rig. My atom based file server (with 2 hard drives) doesn't go over 30W. Compare that to a Xeon which can go over 100W just for the CPU alone. Over the course of a year, that may cost you more than $100 in electricity bills. For decoding/streaming, I use a WDTV Live media player, so raw processing power on the server isn't an issue. Next project for me is to replace my atom server with a pogoplug device running linux (uses only 4Watts!).

"After the agonizingly slow speeds of USB 1.1, USB 2.0 was a huge leap, as it increased the data transfer speeds by almost three times. USB 2.0 has a maximum data transfer speed of 480 Mb/s. Now, USB 3.0 has a maximum data transfer speed of 4.8 Gb/s, which is ten times that of USB 2.0. This bandwidth is even more than that offered by the SATA 2.0 3 Gb/s hard drives currently available. Naturally, the fastest hard drives available today can achieve its maximum potential when used as an external hard drive with USB 3.0 interface."

USB3 is the fastest interface currently... External storage at a discount over internal with no speed cost.

That's funny, I'm doing the same soon, and I agree. But not quite yet, I'm waiting on quad core sticks with usb3 then the real server gets the boot. But an android stick can't do all this can, it's also a fast gaming rig.

Dead, it seems.

What are the issues with this?

FWIW, an Ivy Bridge i3 3225, 7.2k mechanical drive, motherboard, 2x sticks of RAM pulls less than 50w at full tilt, running Prime95. Less than 30w decoding 1080p. Just over 20w at idle. Nill when sleeping. And the i3 absolutely blows away an Atom at doing anything else. I got tired of my Atom machine when trying to watch YouTube, when it was basically a slideshow. You can build a full blown i3 3225 for a little over $300, including a SSD. Case, power supply, RAM, MB, CPU, SSD. The whole 9.

I certainly agree that running old iron like a ancient Xeon is just silly. My 2c



Incorrect. Thunderbolt is currently the fastest multi-use interface, over twice as fast as USB3. TB = 10Gbps, USB3 = 4.8Gbps. It's a shame it's so stupid expensive. It would be ideal to build a NAS with TB to connect to a local workstation. Blazing performance for the local workstation while still having solid performance across the network for media players, etc.

There isn't anything terribly wrong with still running a USB2 drive, depending on it's use. Need to expand your HTPC easily? Even full rate BD rips won't stutter over USB2. Need some cheap, large capacity to run external Crashplan backups? Again, USB2 is fine.

But I agree with others, I would be opening the case up and installing the drive internally.

For those of you buying to do that, SAVE THE ENCLOSURE. No warranty without it.

I agree on the old iron but the guy that asked the question is still running an athlonx2.

Probably no reason to upgrade, but my old iron would be an upgrade. It can run 3ghz quad core for just $25 and heat your whole room at the same time. Double bargain. Space heater and processor in one, keep your toes warm it's cold outside.

As for thunderbolt that's a new one to me, haven't seen or heard of it, have to look that up.

Which test would you reccomend?

QUICK TEST - performs SMART drive quick self-test to gather and verify the Data Lifeguard information contained on the drive.
EXTENDED TEST - performs a Full Media Scan to detect bad sectors. Test may take several hours to complete depending on the size of the drive.

I ran the extended test and after about 30 hours it failed with the error "To many bad sectors detected". The drive would also fail to complete a full format in Windows.

Decent drive to go with a Pogo?

I do believe that these drives including the blue and the black caviars are not equipped to deal with synchronizing errors that might happen in raid. This is why people use enterprise drives for RAID or the new red caviars

I'm trending away from the space heaters, thanks. I built a g850 rig for my girlfriend almost a year ago on the cheap but that's too slow for something I'm going to use regularly. I've been looking at the i3s and since the rest of the rig is good I'd only be looking at a MB and CPU changeout. I know the Xeons pull a lot of juice just to show a desktop so I'll probably steer clear of anything pre socket 1155.

Hmmmm yeah, you're right. But I guess if a drive is really going to fail, it's going to fail whether or not I use it as an external or an internal, so either way, I'd be screwed. So whatever. :P

I pretty much replaced my xeon with a laptop, which just had a p6200 dual core, so you won't get any argument from me. There's very little I need to do that takes more power than the average low end stuff these days. Now if only laptops would be more laptop friendly and not heat up your lap at all. The modest heat this puts out annoys me more than the space heater xeon.

Bought 2 of these last time they were on sale, now I have a 3rd. Going to ZFS raidz1 these together.

Tiger direct rebate system is very sketchy...I sent them everything and they denied the rebate because they said I didn't include the original UPS barcode packing, which of course I did...I do mail in rebates all the time, this is the first time something like this happened.

Id stay away and wait for the amazon/bestbuy deals that don't include mail in rebates...you may pay 5-10 dollars more but at least your money isn't held up for 6-8 weeks.

Deals and wisdom! Love you Slickdeals!! :nod:

TD product page does not show any rebate. How did OP find the rebate?

Edit: never mind. The rebate expired.

You don't want to use the WD Green drive in a NAS... I am pretty sure even WD admits this.

rebate [highspeedbackbone.net] good through 2/9

thanks for this tip, I had no idea what to do.