Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Feb 2014
- Posts
- 2,740
The My Book single is cheaper per TB because it doesn't use Reds (in fact they aren't even guaranteed to use WD drives just "WD quality drives", some have come with Barracudas lol). The reason manufacturers often sell enclosures plus drive for less than the retail price of the drives is because it means they can dictate (roughly) the conditions in which a drive is operated which means they can (theoretically) reduce the chance of a failure inside the warranty period.
I.E The MB Duo being a USB-3 enclosure is unlikely to be running 24/7 and can power down when not in use so the drives will have an easier life than ones running 24/7 in an 8 bay NAS. There's also the factor that the drives themselves have no warranty as that is tied to the enclosure and (I know this isn't the case in the MB Duo but it's an anomaly) users normally have to break internal/external seals to remove them thus voiding their warranty completely and removing any threat of a warranty claim on a drive.
It's all calculated, just like car insurance.
That would make sense if it were 10/15% cheaper, but doesn't make sense when you are talking about 40% of the price (including some cost element for the enclosure itself)