8TB Drives, why is external cheaper than internal?

[Cyber-Mav]

as the title i been hunting around for a 8TB sata drive and noticed a trend where external enclosure drives are far cheaper than the bare internal drive itself.
this doesnt make sense since an external drive should be the one that costs more due to the additional casing and electronics etc.

so why is the bare internal drive more expensive?

 

[mattyfez]

Are the external ones the slower 5200rpm laptop drives?

 

[Deleted member 138126]

I am wondering the exact same thing. An external WD 8TB is £139, yet an 8TB Red is £240 -- what gives? The external is plenty fast (I have one). Very annoying. I want to just buy the external and shuck it, but I'm worried I will get zero warranty.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

I am wondering the exact same thing. An external WD 8TB is £139, yet an 8TB Red is £240 -- what gives? The external is plenty fast (I have one). Very annoying. I want to just buy the external and shuck it, but I'm worried I will get zero warranty.

exactly what i mean. it baffles me as to how external drives can be more expensive with their additional cost of the external enclosure.
is it possible to take out the drive from the external ones or is it gonna void warranty?

 

[Deleted member 138126]

From what I've seen, opening them is pretty much a one-way street -- bunch of tabs get snapped off. In other words, almost impossible to shuck it, then put it back in if you needed to claim warranty.

 

[VaderDSL]

Don't they often raid-0 two drives inside rather than use one larger size?

 

[Deleted member 138126]

Don't they often raid-0 two drives inside rather than use one larger size?

Not in the case of the external 8TB WD MyBook.

 

[linktoinsanity]

is it possible to take out the drive from the external ones or is it gonna void warranty?

It used to be possible to open an external drive and put the disk in an internal system if you were inclined, however nowadays it appears that a lot of them no longer have a SATA interface, just going straight to USB3. It would void warranty anyway.

 

[IT Troll]

The price difference is unexplained and unjustified. You are literally paying more for less.

I am wondering the exact same thing. An external WD 8TB is £139, yet an 8TB Red is £240 -- what gives? The external is plenty fast (I have one). Very annoying. I want to just buy the external and shuck it, but I'm worried I will get zero warranty.

One gotcha on the new 8TB drives is the “3.3v pin issue”, which means the drive will likely need a small mod to work in a desktop system. This is because they are intended for server/NAS use.

From what I've seen, opening them is pretty much a one-way street -- bunch of tabs get snapped off. In other words, almost impossible to shuck it, then put it back in if you needed to claim warranty.

I shucked one recently, the tabs are tell-tales which are designed to break. You can do it so that there is no external damage and the drive can be securely reassembled, but the tell-tales let them know. The serial number on the drive indicates that it came from an enclosure and so you can’t claim on the bare drive.

It used to be possible to open an external drive and put the disk in an internal system if you were inclined, however nowadays it appears that a lot of them no longer have a SATA interface, just going straight to USB3. It would void warranty anyway.

Whilst this is the case on some of the portable 2.5” sized enclosures it is not the case on any of the 3.5” desktop enclosures.

 

[craigyhay]

id guess a bare drive is more expensive as they assume a enthusiast will likely buy it and pay more where external usb drives are super easy installation and aimed at your more average joe consumer, that combined with economies of scale makes it cheaper

 

[IT Troll]

I am not sure the economies of scale argument applies. The drive inside the enclosure is exactly the same as a bare drive and so has already been manufactured at scale.

The external drives tend to come with extra backup/encryption software which they have to provide support for. This will have a higher operating cost than a bare component. They do also try to upsell additional cloud storage though so perhaps part of it is a loss-leader.

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Maybe they just sell more externals than internals, and research suggests they sell the most at a certain price point? Dunno
But your right, it doesnt make sense to us but given all the companies do it I suspect its some weird researched reason to sell the most amount of units.

Anyhow those WD books are awesome for NAS, the 8TB ones are super cheap at the moment and basically have white label reds in them. its a great deal.

It used to be possible to open an external drive and put the disk in an internal system if you were inclined, however nowadays it appears that a lot of them no longer have a SATA interface, just going straight to USB3. It would void warranty anyway.

I have never opened one that hasnt just had a Sata to usb adaptor being held by one screw. Iv opened 3 in the last two months that have all used the same Adaptor.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

so is the wd mybook 8tb the best one to get thats gonna be a easy job of fitting it internally to the pc?

 

[iamtheoneneo]

Easy to shuck? Yeh any of the WD stuff is.

 

[IT Troll]

so is the wd mybook 8tb the best one to get thats gonna be a easy job of fitting it internally to the pc?

Watch out for the “3.3v pin issue” I mentioned previously which affects this drive. You will most likely have to perform a small mod when fitting in a desktop PC. This is because the drive inside is a server/NAS class drive.

The 6TB version doesn't have the issue because it has a standard WB Blue drive inside.

 

[Pdog]

I recently shucked an 8TB WD elements. Prised it open with some old store cards and the tabs were kept intact. I had the 3.3v pin issue, there are a couple of options. I opted for the kapton tape and covered the pin on the disk, worked like a treat.

There is a thread on reddit in /r/DataHorder with more information.

 

[azazl187]

Why not just run some USB 3 ports into your case and just place the external drive in your PC?....

 

[IT Troll]

Why not just run some USB 3 ports into your case and just place the external drive in your PC?....

Because you would need to also run the external power supply into your case for the USB module.

 

[azazl187]

Because you would need to also run the external power supply into your case for the USB module.

Ok so do that too... I'm sure you can mod something right? If people are willing to remove the drive from the case then surely they are willing to mod their case to accept such a device...

 

[IT Troll]

Ok so do that too... I'm sure you can mod something right? If people are willing to remove the drive from the case then surely they are willing to mod their case to accept such a device...

Well personally I’d rather spend 10 minutes taking the drive out of the enclosure rather than needing an external power supply and messy USB cabling. The drive would also be seen as a removable/ejectable device by the O/S. In which case you may as well leave it as an external drive.