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[eBay Plus] Seagate 4TB Expansion Desktop HDD + $1 Item $90 Delivered @ Bing Lee eBay

930
PLUSSS1

$1 items - worked with the "10-100x Latex Standard 25cm Helium Balloons Balloon Party Wedding Birthday 10" other $1 items to choose from link also, sd adapter $1

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  • Somehow it is splitting my order when using PayPal into two so code didn’t work.

  • +3

    Shucked one of these yesterday. ST4000DM004. 2CV104 It is an SMR drive. Expected.

    • I've always wondered why people shuck drives and install them internally when USB is plug and play - does it give better speeds?

      • +5

        Short answer is yes

        • +6

          Long answer: Probably?

          These drives come with a USB 3.0 interface which will max out at 5gbit whereas SATA 3 would be 6gbit. I don't believe you reach either with a mechanical drive, but removing the USB->SATA layer from the equation can only really help…

          I don't think I'd recommend purchasing these for shucking since they're apparently SMR anyway.

          Looks like they're also available instore from Officeworks (max 3 units) and Bing Lee for $99 as well for those without Ebay Plus.

      • +9

        It is faster I believe. For me Its more to remove the cables and clutter from your desk. A big one is dependability. Also your PC SATA manages the power saving features of the drive better, resulting in longer drive life and reduced energy use. I believe that is why these enclosures fail, they practically power up the drive 24x7 even if its not being used. Depends on what you need your drives for. I need the storage for my plex video server which I run from my daily use PC. You use an external and youll find issues like files have broken links from your server because one of the kids either pulled the USB cable or accidentally kicked the power adaptor out of the power board.

        If you just say plug the drive in time to time to do backups, sure the enclosure is great.

        So case in point for me my second mechanical drive was getting full. It is 2TB. I bought this and copied across, shucked and now I have a new 4TB drive in my PC. and then I have installed the 5 year old 2TB drive into the enclosure and use as the backup drive. So my end result I got the upgrade for my PC, and a 2TB expansion drive to use for making backups.

        • +2

          Drives last longer powered up 24/7 than they do with aggressive power saving features like head frequent parking.

          The problem with the plastic enclosures is that they are an oven, the drives get extremely hot with constant writes.

        • Thanks mate. Just got this one in the mail and the test comes back 200m/s via usb, would that be a good speed?

      • Also these external drives come with extremely cheap power supplies and enclosures. Which are the first point of failure

      • For me I do it just because i dont want to have 2 extra cables sitting around and the potential of knocking the external HDD over, etc, i have 10 HDDs in my PC

      • A spinning rust drive via SATA can hit somewhere between 150-170 Mbyte/sec on throughput

        The same drive via USB will usually max out around 110 Mbyte/sec

        while USB3 spec is 5 Gbit (roughly, 500Mbyte/sec)
        - spinning disks won't do that individually
        - you rarely will see the actual spec being achieved in any case

        A big reason to shuck drives is that while 'one disk' performance is broadly comparable.. if you want 2 or more drives then SATA performs a lot better than multiple USB drives sitting on the same bus.

    • Anyone know what to use the power supply and/or usb SATA adapter for after sticking?

  • Best-value expansion drive under $100?

    • +4

      If you don't need fast speed and you don't regularly delete data / overwrite data a lot (adding new data should be okay). It's SMR so if your usage pattern is not affected by it a lot, the it is fine.

      It's good for a cold data storage.

      • They’ve been good for my RAIDZ2 array filled with…. Linux ISOs

      • Hi, if I regularly overwrite copy delete data, which drive is best for that? Should I get Samsung SSD 1tb?

        • +1

          Depends on your budget and usage pattern. SMR HDDs generally come with 128MB cache, so if your work file(s) total is less than 128MB, you might still be able to use a SMR HDD.

          For doing work or you need high I/O throughput, then SSD is preferred. However, if it is just storing movies, ISO images, then SMR could be a viable, cost effective option (unless you filled the SMR close to near full and regularly delete old files and put in new files).

          If 1TB is more than enough for you, then given Samsung is having a promotion, the 1TB SSD is worth considering.

          • @netsurfer: Thank you for your help! Also HDD life stays longer if I frequently overwrite or add new data (daily) as SDD has a limited number of writing right?

            • @thangnhoc: It depends. While in theory, HDD doesn't have limited writes per block, there are a few other factors to considered:

              • While powered on, if one were to accidentally dropped the HDD (say from a desk to the floor), it could render the HDD completely unusable (and the data recovery cost could be $1500+). SSD doesn't have this issue (since it has no moving parts).
              • Regardless of HDD or SSD, they can still suffer failures due to other electronic chips/components.
              • Do you really write that much data per day? Unless you have gigabit NBN, or you are a massive content creator, it's unlikely you will exhaust the TBW before the warranty expires. It's unlikely you completely re-write an SSD every day.
              • If you use SSD, you want to at least keep 10% free. SSDs do perform smart wear levelling, but insufficient spare blocks will wear them out quicker (and you will start losing usable blocks).
              • With smart wear levelling, SSDs generally don't write to the same block (when you update a file). It's likely these SMR HDDs also employs a similar technique.

              Once a storage device is out of warranty, it is generally a good indicator that you need to watch out (and at least make sure important files are not only stored on that device - though even if it is under warranty, you should always backup important files). Drive makers have a good idea when their devices start to develop problems. Most people nowadays probably use both SSDs and HDDs for external storage. There are situations where you want an external storage not affected by occasional / accidental movements (or you are in a rush to backup files and don't want to wait a long time). At the same time, one might have old backups form work done 5-10 years ago. You normally don't need to put those on an SSD.

  • Might want to add the hard drive tag friend.

  • +1

    Thanks Op picked up one drive with the $1 balloons code works paying by credit card.

  • Can you put this in a synology nas?

    • The question is your NAS friendly to SMR hard drives. As this is an SMR hard drive.

    • So long as it likes smr, yes.

    • +1

      RAID setup - avoid SMR if possible.

      Synology NAS - honestly, if you have a Synology NAS, I reckon you are more serious about NAS, it's best not to cheap out on HDD drives for NAS (unless you do backups regularly - you should, even if you have NAS). A friend of mine had a HDD failure on a RAID 5, and the recovery didn't go according to plan (and he did use NAS CMR quality HDDs).

      Not in a RAID setup (standalone) and you don't re-write files a lot (i.e. you generally just add new photos and movies to it), SMR is still a good, cost effective setup. It is generally best suited for backups, not for work in progress project sharing type of workflow.

      • Thanks for the info. I will avoid then

    • yes i had one of these in a ds220j for a while as part of a mirror, no problems

  • +1

    Good price, but I find it hard to persuade myself into buying any more 3.5" external HDDs. 2.5" portables are the go

    • Any difference with the durability of the 2.5 portable vs 3.5 portable? I always wonder.

      • Not much difference. Both mechanical drives

  • Wait so this only works if you have eBay plus right?

    Just spent a good few hours looking at micro as cards and micro sub cables and then got it over $100 checkout then tried to input code and not working.

    I don't have eBay plus unfortunately don't see the point but if it does deals like this it might be worth it.

    • +1

      just join up through this deal & you get back your $49 fee as a $50 voucher, though can't be used with coupon codes

      • I'm very forgetful so I would forget to stop it before it charges me for a new year and I only have one eBay account.

        They catch on to some that uses multiple accounts you have to use new devices and new ip addresses and new details now or you get caught.

        Yeah nice $50 voucher but too much mental energy for me to take advantage of.

        • +1

          you can cancel it after signing up and it will remain valid for the rest of the "membership" year

          • @bdl: How long after I sign up can I do it.

            Like immediately after within the same hour?

  • Can anyone please explain the performance and reliability difference between this post vs Seagate 4414929 4TB Backup Plus Portable HDD Black?

    Thank you

  • What type of external drives can be used so the files stored in it can be accessed wirelessly over wifi through laptop or phones?

    • +1

      If your router has a USB port, plug any drive and you can access it wirelessly on your pc.

      • What’s a cheap/ reasonably priced router that would do this?

        • Tp link vr400 is a decent stable modem/router. It's also compatible with nbn (FTTC).

      • Thanks for that. My router has usb port and plugged in usb but cannot seem to make it work. I am trying on Windows 10 and samsung using samsung files network storage option. Can someone help how can I share folder from laptop over wifi to samsung and plug in usb into router and access over other devices?

        • You need to grant permission to access the drive in the router settings. Once done, you should be able to see it in file Explorer in your pc

  • +1

    does this need external power? or just laptop or desktop usb is fine.

    • +1

      External power.

  • anyone know if officeworks would price match an ebay plus deal like this?

    • Coupon + membership - No. OfficeWorks doesn't match Amazon Prime or Costco deals (due to membership requirement).

      • thanks for clarifying!

    • I got 3 from Officeworks for $99 this week click and collect.

      • How did you manage to get 3 for $99?

        • I assume they meant $99 each, not for the whole lot.

  • Does this drive have data trimming or what ever it's called. Being SMR and all.

    • +1

      No, thats an SSD controller feature.

      • My work pc ST2000DM008 (2tb 7200 rpm drive) has SMART, APM, NCQ and (drumroll) TRIM

        Hard drives that use SMR can have trim but I do not believe the 5400 rpm class have it as the drives expected use case doesn't justify it.

        Worth mentioning for TRIM to work (under windows from what I've seen) the drive gets defragmented first and then trimmed.

  • -1

    Sounds like SMR drives are rubbish. What do ozB recommend for external HD? I need a new drive for time machine backups

    • +1

      If that's all you'll be using it for, there's nothing wrong with SMR
      Literally the only important thing SMR affects is write speed; and if it's staying in its USB case, it's not going to be fast anyway.

      SMR comes into play when you start shucking them.

    • this is fine, as @MasterScythe has said

    • -2

      For laptops or desktops? For MBPs, I don't think using a desktop size external HD is that pleasant. Backups, SMR is fine. Portable external HDs nowadays are all SMR.

      A colleague bought a 2TB external SSD for his MPB for time machine.

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