expirediconian | Staff posted Jun 17, 2025 04:01 AM
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expirediconian | Staff posted Jun 17, 2025 04:01 AM
14TB WD Elements Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive $185 + Free S/H
$185
$370
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For example, Seagate has a 24TB external drive that has a 2 year warranty, but is limited to 100 power on days per year, and 120 TB transfers per year. To put that into perspective, even if you don't use the drive for 100 days in a year, which doesn't even account for every weekend, you will hit the 120 TB transfer limit within a few days as you test the drive with badblocks/pre-clear.
Even if you only test 2 patterns in badblocks (the default is 4, meaning this is essentially half a test), it will write 24 TB of data, read it back, and repeat once more, leaving you with 96 TB of transfers used out of 120 TB before you even begin to use the drive. Then, actually filling the drive with your data and verifying that data puts you at 144 TB, all within a week, meaning you've gone over the warranty. I wouldn't touch that drive with a 10ft pole.
But Seagate usually doesn't have those terrible warranty terms for drives, so sometimes they're the better pick. Their drives are usually faster, especially if you get an exos or ironwolf pro in your external. This deal for 14TB WD Elements in particular, however, is really good, so I'd definitely jump on it. Here in Canada, WD's webstore actually had these for $224 thanks to a coupon that stacked with their sale, which is $163 USD, so I picked up two and am testing them with badblocks as we speak.
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How safe is it to get these shipped across country? Are they that fragile?
What type of drives are inside?
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