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expired Posted by persian_mafia | Staff • Nov 19, 2021
expired Posted by persian_mafia | Staff • Nov 19, 2021

5TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive

+ Free Shipping

$90

$180

50% off
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Best Buy via eBay has 5TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive (WDBAJP0050BBK-WESN) for $89.99. Shipping is free.

Best Buy has 5TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive (WDBAJP0050BBK-WESN) for $89.99. Shipping is free, otherwise select free curbside pickup where stock permits..

Note, availability for curbside pickup may vary by location.

Thanks to Deal Editor persian_mafia for finding this deal.

Editor's Notes

Written by CChoiVA
  • About this deal:
  • About this product:
    • Rated 4.8 stars out of 5 overall based on 8,100+ reviews on Best Buy
  • About this store:
    • Best Buy via eBay return policy: 14-day returns. Buyer pays for return shipping
    • Best Buy return policy: Purchases made Oct. 18, 2021, through Jan. 2, 2022, have an extended return period through Jan. 16, 2022, excluding items purchased with a third-party contract (e.g., activatable devices [cell phones, cellular tablets, mobile hotspots, cellular wearables] and AppleCare monthly plans, etc.), and holiday products (e.g., artificial trees, lights, decorations, etc.). Other exclusions and all other terms and conditions of the Best Buy Return & Exchange Promise apply.

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Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Best Buy via eBay has 5TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive (WDBAJP0050BBK-WESN) for $89.99. Shipping is free.

Best Buy has 5TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive (WDBAJP0050BBK-WESN) for $89.99. Shipping is free, otherwise select free curbside pickup where stock permits..

Note, availability for curbside pickup may vary by location.

Thanks to Deal Editor persian_mafia for finding this deal.

Editor's Notes

Written by CChoiVA
  • About this deal:
  • About this product:
    • Rated 4.8 stars out of 5 overall based on 8,100+ reviews on Best Buy
  • About this store:
    • Best Buy via eBay return policy: 14-day returns. Buyer pays for return shipping
    • Best Buy return policy: Purchases made Oct. 18, 2021, through Jan. 2, 2022, have an extended return period through Jan. 16, 2022, excluding items purchased with a third-party contract (e.g., activatable devices [cell phones, cellular tablets, mobile hotspots, cellular wearables] and AppleCare monthly plans, etc.), and holiday products (e.g., artificial trees, lights, decorations, etc.). Other exclusions and all other terms and conditions of the Best Buy Return & Exchange Promise apply.

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Model: WD - Easystore 5TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive - Black

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Top Comments

TalentedHaddock257
814 Posts
204 Reputation
Just take any old/broken Sandisk/WD drive to the customer service at BB, take the new 5TB drive, and they'll give you a 15% recycle discount. So it's 90x0.85=$76.5 + tax

Must drive to the store though!
TalentedHaddock257
814 Posts
204 Reputation
The gold standard for burn in is to run "badblocks -vws /dev/sdX" in Linux (or Parted USB boot), which will write/read different patterns 4 times, full drive. This will probably have the drive see more action than the typical write once, read forever, LOL.

Note that this 5Tb easystore is an SMR drive (shingled). The USB interface is soldered to the drive's board, so there is no pure SATA interface accessible.

SMR drives generally support the ATA TRIM command, and secure erase which will reset the drive to a factory like state. However, I tried to get to it, and the WD USB interface on this 5Tb drive does not seem to support UASP properly, so I could not issue a secure erase command. See this blog for details:

https://blog.wirelessmoves.com/2020/07/deleting-an-ssd-with-ata-security-erase.html

With a 2Tb Seagate from ~2015, the same computer did recognize UASP without issues. So I think this WD is using a cheap crappy USB bridge. But then it's a cheap drive. LOL!
DoobieBrother
5501 Posts
631 Reputation
Some one else chimed in with a few pro options, but I would think the best place to start is with crystal disk info to check the actual drive make and model and its condition (how many power ons and hours.. Zero should be the answers). Then the HD manufacturer hard drive tools. In this case WD lifeguard tools. Start with simple Smart tests and then do a long generic or write zeros (wipe) the drive. The idea is to let the thing get up to temp and then verify it has 100% health.. Put some hours on it before you start doing the file transfers..

Hard drive fails normaly are when the drive is verry new, and fairly old. DOA drives happen all the time. You want to weed out the young low hours drive fail rates prior you depending on the drive... A long generic or wipe all sectors, should take quite a while.. You could use a program like DBAN that you can configure to run checking each sector over and over until you tell it to stop.. Run it for a day or two, or set it to do more than 1 pass on auto..

Oh yea these things are fragile. Though portable, you should not atempt moving it in any matter while it is plugged in and operating. Spinning hard drives are actually quite sensitive to shocks and movement. I often find myself wanting to clean the clutter off my desk while it is copying files or testing.. DONT do it .. Stop and resist the urge. Murphys law predicts that if you do you wont like the results. Sh!t happens because it can.

My point is or was is that when you get that brand new drive, dont pour all your data in it for a backup of important data so you can reformat the original drive for say a OS upgrade, or a internal drive upgrade.. put some hours on it first before you go on that cross country drive. Trusting a new drive takes time to earn that trust.

112 Comments

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Nov 19, 2021
57 Posts
Joined Oct 2014
Nov 19, 2021
skim155
Nov 19, 2021
57 Posts
Quote from soultar1 :
Use one of these with Nvidia shield for plex server. No additional power needed. Runs great. Not to hot.
Do you run the shield with the HD plugged in 24/7?
Nov 19, 2021
928 Posts
Joined Mar 2009
Nov 19, 2021
dealmasti
Nov 19, 2021
928 Posts
Quote from DarkerKnight :
You just need to reformat it ExFAT format to use it on both Mac and Windows
thanks..i suppose that's to be done before putting any files in the drive.
whats the process to do that?
Nov 19, 2021
203 Posts
Joined Mar 2018
Nov 19, 2021
DarkerKnight
Nov 19, 2021
203 Posts
Quote from dealmasti :
thanks..i suppose that's to be done before putting any files in the drive.
whats the process to do that?
Yes. Formatting will erase all data, so you need to do it before putting in the files. It is as simple as right click on the drive and format in windows (or) go to Disk Utility and select format in Mac
Nov 20, 2021
3,058 Posts
Joined Jul 2011
Nov 20, 2021
soultar1
Nov 20, 2021
3,058 Posts
Quote from skim155 :
Do you run the shield with the HD plugged in 24/7?
Yes I do.
Nov 20, 2021
5,501 Posts
Joined Apr 2009
Nov 20, 2021
DoobieBrother
Nov 20, 2021
5,501 Posts

Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank DoobieBrother

Quote from speeddmon :
How do you do the test?

Some one else chimed in with a few pro options, but I would think the best place to start is with crystal disk info to check the actual drive make and model and its condition (how many power ons and hours.. Zero should be the answers). Then the HD manufacturer hard drive tools. In this case WD lifeguard tools. Start with simple Smart tests and then do a long generic or write zeros (wipe) the drive. The idea is to let the thing get up to temp and then verify it has 100% health.. Put some hours on it before you start doing the file transfers..

Hard drive fails normaly are when the drive is verry new, and fairly old. DOA drives happen all the time. You want to weed out the young low hours drive fail rates prior you depending on the drive... A long generic or wipe all sectors, should take quite a while.. You could use a program like DBAN that you can configure to run checking each sector over and over until you tell it to stop.. Run it for a day or two, or set it to do more than 1 pass on auto..

Oh yea these things are fragile. Though portable, you should not atempt moving it in any matter while it is plugged in and operating. Spinning hard drives are actually quite sensitive to shocks and movement. I often find myself wanting to clean the clutter off my desk while it is copying files or testing.. DONT do it .. Stop and resist the urge. Murphys law predicts that if you do you wont like the results. Sh!t happens because it can.

My point is or was is that when you get that brand new drive, dont pour all your data in it for a backup of important data so you can reformat the original drive for say a OS upgrade, or a internal drive upgrade.. put some hours on it first before you go on that cross country drive. Trusting a new drive takes time to earn that trust.
Last edited by DoobieBrother November 19, 2021 at 04:49 PM.
1
Nov 20, 2021
814 Posts
Joined Apr 2021
Nov 20, 2021
TalentedHaddock257
Nov 20, 2021
814 Posts
Quote from DoobieBrother :
...
Hard drive fails normaly are when the drive is verry new, and fairly old. DOA drives happen all the time. You want to weed out the young low hours drive fail rates prior you depending on the drive... A long generic or wipe all sectors, should take quite a while.. You could use a program like DBAN that you can configure to run checking each sector over and over until you tell it to stop.. Run it for a day or two, or set it to do more than 1 pass on auto..
...
Very true! You want to take care of the infant mortality, the infamous Bathtab curve:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve

The best tools to stress test are under Linux, if you can stomach it. It's actually quite easy, boot a USB with Parted, and just type a few commands in the terminal.
Nov 20, 2021
413 Posts
Joined Sep 2006
Nov 20, 2021
bizzy420
Nov 20, 2021
413 Posts
Quote from TalentedHaddock257 :
Just take any old/broken Sandisk/WD drive to the customer service at BB, take the new 5TB drive, and they'll give you a 15% recycle discount. So it's 90x0.85=$76.5 + tax

Must drive to the store though!
Does it have to be sandisk or WD? I have a few old portable HDs that still require it to be plugged it. They're like 10 years old and I'm not even sure if terabyte drives were out at the time.

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Nov 20, 2021
1,298 Posts
Joined Jul 2008
Nov 20, 2021
macpro
Nov 20, 2021
1,298 Posts
Quote from SmilingRoad414 :
Guessing not shuckable right?
It's a 2.5" spinning drive from a budget line -- it's not a drive you want in your NAS.
Nov 20, 2021
5,501 Posts
Joined Apr 2009
Nov 20, 2021
DoobieBrother
Nov 20, 2021
5,501 Posts
Quote from macpro :
It's a 2.5" spinning drive from a budget line -- it's not a drive you want in your NAS.
Also WD portable drives only have the usb port out the back of the drives logic board. There is no way to use it as anything other than a external usb drive.
Nov 20, 2021
1,393 Posts
Joined Feb 2010
Nov 20, 2021
Rhythmic
Nov 20, 2021
1,393 Posts
Quote from bizzy420 :
Does it have to be sandisk or WD? I have a few old portable HDs that still require it to be plugged it. They're like 10 years old and I'm not even sure if terabyte drives were out at the time.
It doesn't have to be WD or Sandisk. I took an old Seagate IDE drive in once and a generic no brand flash drive another time, they really didn't care. The terms on BestBuy recycling promo page don't dictate any particular brand either.
1
Nov 20, 2021
319 Posts
Joined Nov 2013
Nov 20, 2021
pittpatriot
Nov 20, 2021
319 Posts
Quote from DarkerKnight :
You just need to reformat it ExFAT format to use it on both Mac and Windows
Be careful. Mac or Catalina and newer releases doesn't detect the exfat and some other fat formats automatically when mounted. It's a pain. Format according to the newest os requirements and also make sure it's backward compatible with older os'es
Nov 20, 2021
319 Posts
Joined Nov 2013
Nov 20, 2021
pittpatriot
Nov 20, 2021
319 Posts
This is not an SSD right. So I assume it would be super slow ?
Nov 20, 2021
470 Posts
Joined Aug 2007
Nov 20, 2021
CGnome
Nov 20, 2021
470 Posts
Mine just died after 3 years and most of that time it sat untouched.
Pro
Nov 20, 2021
9,348 Posts
Joined Dec 2013
Nov 20, 2021
doboy007
Pro
Nov 20, 2021
9,348 Posts
Quote from pittpatriot :
This is not an SSD right. So I assume it would be super slow ?
Haha, SSD. Are you smoking something?
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Nov 20, 2021
32 Posts
Joined Sep 2021
Nov 20, 2021
MellowPlastic218
Nov 20, 2021
32 Posts
5TB WD Easystore External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive (WDBAJP0050BBK-WESN) for $89.99
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