Not the cheapest it's been (lowest appears to be $315 on Prime Day). $325.63 after CR 12% cashback.
The drive inside is an Ultrastar HC520 (cheapest on Static Ice is $600 at SkyComp). Also comes with 3 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
Instructions for shucking: https://www.maxrev.de/wd-black-d10-game-drive-12tb-xbox-gehu…
CamelCamelCamel.
yes, well there is no actual date on the pass, but there is an expiry where its supposed to be on a sticker on the box, but in the ones i got there was no sticker.
June 2021 according to the stickers on my box I received.
I got 7 (4 on prime day - 3 from UK 1 from US, 3 on Black Friday), all said June 2021.
I also shucked them all, and all were HC520s.
These are by far the BEST drives to shuck.
In terms of shucking:
I broke the majority of the clips (inside the case holding down the rubber grommets in place) while shucking using 2 flat head screw drivers as a vice… If you don't want to break these clips, I suggest you buy the appropriate tool. I reckon very long (~5cm) heavy duty fishing hooks would work when used like a chop stick to pry the clips apart and raise. Using force to pull these clips up will break them most of the time. Of the 28 clips from shucking 7 drives, I only have 6? 7? intact clips to use when I need to re-case for warranty by using force to "lift" the clips up.
You will also need a set of torx and allen keys (~$15 for either torx or allen or ~$30 for both from Supercheap Auto).
- Torx screws for the 4 x Grommet holders.
- Allen keys for the 4 x external screws.
A tips is that you just buy the torx and use the smallest torx as a sub for allen when working on the external screws… this is what I ended up doing after the first 2 drives as it was easier to use the torx tool than the allen key for the external screws (1. I bought the set of hex + allen, but regret it after I found out that the torx worked better by itself. 2. they are hex but VERY shallow, the torx tool dug into the screw and made it deeper = more grip, hence working better… the allen key kept slipping so had to hold it down REALLY hard to get the required grip. 3. I now have 8 "clean" screws from using the allen key, and 20 "scratched" screws from using the torx tool… only the 8 clean ones are usable if I need warranty for any of these drives… I guess I can return a max of 1 drive for warranty due to the number of intact clips anyway).
Could a spudger tool open the case without breaking the tabs?
Once the drive is out, can we just plug it straight into a PC case without modding?
Is it SMR or CMR?
Did a bit of googling and this comes up as as CMR drive and since its a DC-grade drive, its got enterprise features incl a 5 yr warranty.
Thank you
Good find OP…damn I think FOMO is setting in for me as im kinda paranoid this will get Ozbargain-ed tomorrow once the CR 12% cashback kicks in lol…
How quiet is this drive guys?
Was looking at a stand alone drive for some archives. Thanks & all the very best to OZ Bargainers for the festive season :-)
If you want quiet, this is the wrong drive. None of my 7 are "quiet" (I tested all in the original enclosure before shucking)… they all vibrated violently and were quite loud. There's also a small fan inside the enclosure adding to the noise… I'd say it's around 2 - 3 cm fan.
If you want to shuck and put in a NAS, this is the perfect drive.
Thanks for the heads up!
Price is okay, although it has been this way for the better part of a week.
Does this go into the x series x plus for hdd expansion slot or is this something else ?
Something else. The expansion slot is tiny, this is an external hard drive
So previous post I put up includes Video on how to Shuck. Best to use IC Chip grabber or two flat head screwdrivers. Watching the video will avoid alot of pain. Physical pain.
Also knowing how to Shuck it will save hours from your life because of a hidden clip.
It's in my PC and it's not that noisy, it's slightly noiser than my WD blue but can't hear it over my graphics card at all.
Really awesome drive.
Note that you actually get around 10 TB usable due to how windows calculates TBs Vs how WD calculates TBs
Both IC chip grabber and flathead screw drivers are not good methods if you want intact clips. You want to use something like a long fishing hook to get under the legs of the clip and pry them "wide" so you can just lift them up. Grabbing the "head" of the clip and pulling via force will result in the majority of the clips being broken.
2 Flathead screwdrivers worked for me. Use 2 at once or Pliers, also worked. I'm stating from my experience. They literally flew out and I've still got intact clips…
I'm stating from experience too…
Either you are very lucky, or most of them are broken but you haven't noticed.
I pulled 28 from 7 drives using the 2 screwdriver method.
6 or 7 were intact.
About 6 more "looked" intact, but were broken (the triangle at the end of the legs was broken but still attached, so they "looked fine" until you actually touched the triangle bit to check).
The rest had the legs themselves broken.
i bought this one for $315 2 months ago. I thought Seagate's 14tb at $386 is worthier cuz it's $36 more for another 2tb. Also exos is slightly faster than hc520 (265 vs 250 mb/s)
Could you please give a link for the seagate 14tb one? Thanks.
WD drives have been more reliable for me and this is over a period of 15 years.
Seagate vs HGST (HC520s are HGSTs)… no brainer.
Just because these have WD on the outside doesn't make this drive an actual WD.
The pricing gap is now narrower as the Seagate is only $5 dearer than this WD one but the warranty for me is what made me get this drive.
Amazon is only offering a one year warranty and Seagate themselves are silent on the warranty for the drive so there's that discrepancy while WD is offering 5 years which is the same as the bare version of their DC drive.
You also get the 3 months Game Pass Ultimate which is worth $30-$40. Did you get on the cashback this morning mate?
I did..it tracked within 3 hours and CR is saying im getting back $21 or so roughly (bit less than the max $25 they're saying was the limit) which pretty much covered the extra charge I paid for priority shipping.
Is there an expiry date on the game pass?