Either a WD Red or HGST He8...

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/HGST-Enterprise-He8-HDD-Found-Early-Retail-8TB-WD-My-Book

i got the 8tb on thursday and just copied a huge amount of data, did some checks, pulled from caddy and stuck in a sata caddy and noticed that the data was available, unlike the 6tb drive i got the other week. when i went to delete the partition i noticed it was a single partition this time. anyway i deleted it and made a new one and quick formatted before copying the data. they've obviously changed something with the encryption. i'll test at some point to see if the old caddy can be used with a drive without having to rewrite data

huge help to me as it took a day and a half to copy data via usb3, when i was expecting to have to repeat it when i removed the drive. as the warranty is lost when openinging the caddy i prefer to fill the drive with data and do some tests before removing it, and that's how i picked up on a problem the last time. sticker on the drive was a white one, i didn't look to close at the serial number to see if it was a WD red

The £10 code is working for me right now.

Now expired was WDSPRING16

Sounds like you answered your own question! I don't know of any more cash back sites.

20% code please ???
Also is there any cashback ? I have tried Quidco and TCB, no luck ...

whoosh :smiley:

What ???

£18 per TB ?? Why not, wait another 2-3 years when the higher capacity is on the market ...

Yes for you not for other people who need it ..
You will never know how the people use this and still not big enough

He means actually running it on the drive like you can with a NAS, in which case the answer is no.

As It's an external USB3 hdd then assuming it shows up as a normal drive, I don't think anything would stop you using it with plex providing whatever it's plugged into is capable of running Plex.

hmm tempting especially for backing up my NAS.

Is the code still working? Doesn't do anything for me

I should have put it in the original post but I'm not that guy. :wink:

That guy hasn't showed up in any HDD threads I've seen recently. I kind of miss the banality of it tbh :smirk:

It's called SED or Self-Encrypting Drives, the drive is encrypted with a key set in the factory, all the password does is encrypt that key. This way the security can be turned on or off instantly but the data on the disk is always encrypted so the disk is unreadable without their USB caddy with the decryption chip. As you said, nonsense!

It is called a rant. Don't worry.

?

excellent deal was looking at something more automated

Yeah, but have you considered the cost per (scoffs) GB?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-Denon-3-5-MF-2HD-floppy-disks-in-plastic-storage-box-1-44MB-DS-HD-discs-/141988215968?hash=item210f283ca0:g:zawAAOSwAuNW4qQD

£550 per GB is the cost of never putting all your eggs in one basket.

There are lots of 'those types' out there. They vote UKIP, but they aren't racist, they don't like change, but they will vote to leave the EU, they might own a shedload of houses in Kent, so if one burns down, they'd still have somewhere to live, and they will appreciate being reminded that they can zip their files and save on space too!

i can't remember what drive was inside the 6tb. it was labelled with a black recertified label. not sure if it was a 6tb green or blue. it didn't really matter too much. I could have got away with upgrading from a 4tb to 5tb but I thought 5tb drives were less reliable for some reason, and wanted to max out space wise but the 8tb price put me off going that much higher as by the time I needed to jump from 6tb to bigger the prices would have came down more

btw just got a reply from customer service when I called about the discount not working and the guy told me to email, but looked at the refund situation. they originally replied to say call them, after I had called them and was told to email, so I forwarded the email from the guy I spoke to, and explained I had called and the guy told me to email and they said to call, and in reply they said my refund would be processed in 5-7 days and ignored the question being asked. I got the refund on Saturday or sunday, which surely their system would have shown. just completely awful customer service, and that's on the phone and by email. annoyingly one of the phone numbers they use is a werid foreign Freephone number than my mobile service won't let me call so I needed to google for an alternate number. I wonder how much business they lose out as a result of this, as I imagine most annoyed customers would just give up and not use them again

the other thing about the caddy and removing the drive is you can't just use the caddy to stick in an old drive unless you want the encryption. so ironically i'll have 4 of those caddys and need to buy a usb3 caddy for an old drive. looks strangely like they only support up to 2tb unless they do more and the box just says 2tb limit. I swap discs around a lot so don't want any encryption nonsense. btw no password was asked when I used the drive so don't know the point of the encryption as surely if you take the drive in the caddy you can plug it in and it will work so what difference does it make if you pull the drive. maybe the software adds the password but I didn't use that and just deleted the partition and made a new one, which was still encrypted

With a 20% off coupon the 5TB Elements is only £95. I think that is a better buy because it has no encryption so if the caddy dies then your data isn't lost like it can be with the standard My Book which has always-on encryption. As the disk size gets bigger this stuff gets more important. If on the other hand you actually want the hardware encryption then it would be fine, but requiring a password every time it is connected is rather tedious and WD's encryption can be easily cracked by the authorities if you were actually trying to hide something.

Thanks for the detailed post, what drives were in your enclosures? I've sent other comments about very poor wd service which is off putting

it depends on who you speak to at customer service, which in my personal experience over the last month, is absolutely terrible.

before I bought 2x 6tb drives last month I asked the question and they ummed and awed at it, and instead of a straight "no", they said it depends on the circumstances, you would need to return the caddy and all the bits. but I had a problem with one drive upon delivery and initially was advised it would be returned by the post office but instead they issue a UPS label. so if they can't give correct advise on whether it's the royal mail or UPS I wouldn't trust them. there was a delay in getting the UPS label so upon chasing they suggested I return by royal mail, pay the fee and they would refund it. I asked them to confirm it in writing by email, and after being put on hold I was told that was incorrect and they wouldn't

in practice, opening the case is pretty simple, although there are plastic clips inside that will break if you open it, or at least they did for me on the 3 drives I opened (using a penknife and guitar plectrum), but it will clip back together if you are careful. however depending on how much they check IF you returned it, they may not pick up on this if you put it back together reasonable well, or they may not actually care, and if returning as faulty they would need to pull the drive anyway. so if it was completely broke and you opened carefully and put it all back together and it looked reasonable, and you returned it, they may accept it back and refund you. no guarantees of course. personally I wouldn't really want to return a drive full of my data

on the old backup/lose data thing, I bought 2 6tb, returned one and got a 8tb. one drive is to backup the other. I have my data backed up so I don't need to worry about "eggs in one basket" and all the comments about drives being too big etc

regarding the code, it appears to be a specific code for one use only, its one of those letter and number codes like "wx1238hj" or something like that instead of codes like "WDDISCOUNT20" and I've used my code. the code came about 5 days after placing my first order and it gives you 30 days to use it. warning, I did have problems using my code, called customer service who asked me to email them, who in reply asked me to phone them. they said you need to click the link in the email, but it had no hyperlinks, but a link further down did, but didn't work first or second time, using different pcs and browsers so I'm not sure if they disabled it due to the refund. so for example you place an order for the cheapest drive, get the code and place an order for a more expensive one, and potentially return the first order "free return shipping" and get one drive with 20% discount. a lot of faffing about but to save £38 on a 8tb drive it's perhaps worth it. so get a refurb 1tb portable drive and get the code and the 1tb drive is effectively free

if that sounds like cheating or unfair then so be it. but with the awful customer service they deserve it as far as I'm concerned. not that its stopped me rebuying from them, but I buy based on price and couldn't find a better deal elsewhere. it's just a shame about the customer service. I got there in the end though

8TB EX2 is £380 mind you - that's quite a bit more via the WD shop!

Ahhh, if I can get a 20% off then i'll bite.
So close but can't find 20% so i'll pass, the price i'll pay is £18 per TB, that's how much the wd drives were at £90 (5tb) x2 = 10tb for £180, so this is not worth it in my opinion even though it is one drive.

I don't think you can set up a plex media server on the desktop external drives from WD. You are better off spending a little more and get a NAS drive which can run a plex media server:

http://store.wdc.com/store/wdeu/en_GB/DisplayCompareProductListPage/ThemeID.563961000/parentCategoryID.59193500/categoryID.70751900/Network_Attached_Storage/My_Cloud_Expert_Series

fort just put it back in the case then

I assume warranty is void if the harddrive is taken out of the case?

If you split the 8TB of data across 5,892,946 floppy disks you will only lose 1.44MB at a time! :wink:

HGST HE8

Either a WD Red or HGST He8...

https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/HGST-Enterprise-He8-HDD-Found-Early-Retail-8TB-WD-My-Book

Anyone know what drive is inside this. WD Red?

inb4 "that's a lot of data to lose"

Care to share the 20% code !!!!

whats the 20% off code?

i just got one using the 20% off code from my last order so £152 delivered. I couldn't stack the £10 code. I forgot to use the £10 code on my first order though. the 6tb would have been £35 more so £17 per gb extra isn't bad. i'll be using it internally by removing the drive

£180 with code.