The drives are hardware encrypted. You cannot turn this encryption off. There is a password option, but even if you do not use this, the drives are still always encrypted. The electronics that do the encryption are built into the enclosure. The encryption/decryption key is built into a chip in the enclosure. The user has no access to this key.

Suppose the enclosure fails, and you cannot get it repaired easily. You may think that you can simply remove one of the drives and put it (for example) in a docking bay. However, the information on the drive is unreadable without the decryption key - the decryption key that is built into the enclosure: the drives are not readable outside the enclosure. It does not matter that the drives themselves may be fine: without the enclosure they are useless.
Hmmmm

I bought two last week. The drive inside is a wd80ezzx. It seems this drive is only used for these as i can't find it on its own, appears it's a rebranded HGST but at 5400rpm. From my reading up on it it's a good drive. I am using them in my synology.

The casing is quite difficult to get off and i snapped a couple of clips on both units but wasn't really bothered as i don't need the enclosure.

Very good way of getting 8TB drives IMO

well they have about 2 grand of mine

I've also had to start a a-z guarantee refund claim as the seller has disappeared from Amazon. I don't know if they have been thrown off or just done a runner with the thousands of pounds they may have obtained through Amazon. I can't believe Amazon don't hold money or ask for some evidence of the seller being a company with a decent history to stop people doing this sort of thing.

£10 off £100 spending code is from HUKD
Western Digital voucher codes:£10 - WDSTORECPN

10% off code
After you sign up their newsletter, few minutes later you will receive by email.

Apparently the same email can sign up newsletter multiple times.

Two codes can stack.



About 1 month ago, WD store was doing 20% off, can stack with the 10% code, make it 28% off in total. But I missed it.

I know.

WD Store frequently have out of stock on a lot of items, both brand new and refurbished.

I do not get it how they operate. Are they short of production compacity?

I love it how WD who manufacture the drives can be out of stock

Where did you got codes for WD?

I bought one from amazon directly at £160 (I bought with 5% student discount) when the deal was alive.

Then I bought one from WD store for £170 yesterday. (it was £200 with 10% off code + £10 off £100).

WD Store is now out of stock too. I just hope that they had stock to honor my order.

Any idea what the My Book 8TBs are so expensive at the moment? Is this due to floods or something in the country where they're made?

Guys, marc.maurin is a scammer. He has loads of negative feedback recently. Amazon contacted him on my behalf and I got an email back saying he's no longer on the Amazon platform. I phoned and spoke to a supervisor and asked for a refund saying the item was from the UK but had a 3 week delivery time yet no tracking number. They said I had to wait 1 more week until the 3 weeks passed before they could refund me. I then did a live chat with Amazon and explained the situation again and they did an A-Z Guarantee refund immediately which will be in my account in 3 days.

The drives from Amazon directly are now £210.62 and in stock on 28th July. I just hope the price will fall after that time.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

My start date was yesterday and finish is next Friday 29th.

Well Amazon sure will be annoyed if they need to cover all my purchases.

Still after their attitude on the WD 8TB reduction serves them right.

Well it's past the starting delivery date and nearing the final delivery date for me and I was promised a tracking number days ago but still haven't received one. Therefore in a couple of days I'll be filing with Amazon for a refund as this marc.maurin seller is obviously a scammer and reported it as dispatched weeks ago so they would receive my money from Amazon.

I guess we will all have to do this. How many thousands of pounds has this seller received for these without dispatching anything and why does Amazon give sellers with little feedback large amounts of money without waiting for goods to be delivered or without even any tracking information? I know paypal/ebay sometimes hold money until items are delivered if you are a newer seller or have only a few sales and suddenly sell a number of high value items.

Down to £186.63 now.

Pretty disgusting that Amazon took all the orders and then cancelled them because they didn't like the price their algorithm chose to sell the unit at.

Don't have stock to fulfil the £163 units but can apparently provide the £210 ones.

go sit outside a uni and offer someone a bigmac for use of theyr e-mail address?

What's the cheapest way to get a .ac email address?

you just need an .ac e-mail address

They have been £159.99 twice
here's current price

Model: WDBFJK0080HBK-NESN
Regular Price: £ 200.00 incl. VAT
Promo Price: £ 189.99 incl. VAT

Can you tell me how much it costs please with the student discount. I need a lot of drives and may get a student card to get the discount.

You can only see the discount price if you got a student account with WD store.

Give you a link will still show £200 the normal price if you do not log in as student.

How much do they cost now on the student store?

Could you give me a link to the product on the student store please.

The bad feedback from the dodgy seller is only for the delay.

And I'm not saying it's right by any means as he does state location as UK.

..........but it does state in his profile
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aag/details/ref=aag_m_ss?ie=UTF8&asin=&isAmazonFulfilled=0&isCBA=&marketplaceID=A1F83G8C2ARO7P&orderID=206-2681761-7555519&seller=A2LLB2KZNHNS4S#aag_legalInfo

I'm hoping mine arrive from Marc.Maurin and even if they are EU stock with a 2 pin plug that'll be fine for me.

Ordered two from amazon

Order is now cancelled.

Cant believe amazon canceled them
i paid £159.99 from western digital student store for my other 4

It was amazon's automated system that lowered it to £163 to try and match that dodgy seller
they will still be making a small amount at £163

That's a shame :disappointed:, I was hoping I would be given another chance to buy one.


lol It is a joke, especially as Amazon are willing to sell the item, they just want £210 for it.
The other seller has started receiving bad feedback.

No, it is from DODGY Amazon...

Same, gutted.

same here. Direct from Amazon and cancelled.

Amazon itself

From Amazon or the dodgy seller?

Order from Amazon just got cancelled. Just great

Replace the HDDs with SSDs and you will never have that problem again. :wink:

I have a 28TB HP Microserver running Windows Server 2012 R2 with Storage Spaces and a 16TB Synology NAS that uses SHR and Btrfs. What does that mean? :confused:

IMO both systems have their pros and cons.

one thing that really ticks me off with that type of setup ^ - if installing an app, game or update...quite often the installer seems to call every single drive to spin up one by one....causing a delay, plus unnecessary startups. Similar to if plug in new usb/hardware devices, come usb detection all the drives spin up. If you ever figured a way to prevent that would be much appreciated :smiley:

I have an old N54l in front room (HTPC double up)

Also copied this for my main PC, can fit 21 drives in there.......only difference being gaming spec etc in it, brill but a wiring mess :smiley:

https://www.avforums.com/threads/smurfs-monster-40tb-unraid-nas-build.1347547/

Wow are you sure you need to have that much porn?

That's a large p0rn collection right there! :wink:

I don't see the deal on amazon .

are the 7 NAS that you mention the ones in your photos?

Would you recommend the Gen8 boxes? there always seems to be decent cashback deals on them
http://www.hotukdeals.com/search?action=search&keywords=proliant
http://www.hotukdeals.com/search?action=search&keywords=gen8

Synology is for people who dont know what they are doing

I have 7 nas's as well that are in standby 99% of the time

@Shonk: blimey! that's mental.

what are you opinions on Synology NAS boxes? why Proliant rather than Synology?

HDAT2 works for me. Zero Fill doesn't work for everyone. I shouldn't have kicked off I can see that now.

In all honesty for the circumstance of testing an external USB HDD a GUI based test is fine and probably more satisfactory than booting up from a USB stick, use Zero Fill wisely folks :smiley:

now showing £210.62 from Amazon direct (dispatched 1-2 months)

I have spindown enabled after 60mins of idle

9 Drives Internal
1 64GB Micro SD Internal
4 Drives E-SATA 6gbps
6 Drives USB 3.0 UASP

Then the Second one (Black)
has 6 Internal drives

now showing £210.62 from Amazon direct (dispatched 1-2 months)

"I built, supported and repaired PCs for over 10 years before moving on to more interesting roles in the field"

Possibly a wise move :smiley: Anyway you readily admit you don't know which programs to use to test a HDD.

I'll behave in a less assertive/aggressive manner here and say this, as I'm always willing to reapraise my behaviour and try and be open minded. So I'll look at things this way >

HDAT2 can easily be installed on to a bootable USB medium using Rufus. Also as these external HDDs are USB and will be plugged in to existing systems usually running Windows (but not they could be running Linux or OSX) then using a GUI based tool is a reasonable ask. I would never myself suggest a Zero Fill method and I apologise for kicking off and I'm saying this of my own volition and not under duress :smiley:

How much does it cost in electricity per month to power 20 drives and HP Proliant Gen8 set-up?
Are the 20 drives in some sort of enclosure/rackmount?

You must spend a fair amount on TV shows/films :wink:...
I was considering this drive to replace a 2TB film drive, it wouldn't be so bad but just last week I allocated another two 2TB drives (active and backup) to film after purchasing 2x4TB drives for other uses (it left me with 2x2TB drives).

1. HDAT2 is easy to implement and use
2. HDAT2 is reliable
3. HDAT2 in any circumstance when choosing 'check for bad sectors' will not destroy data

Nothing more to be said.

Whatever means you disregard what I'm saying and you also disregard the data integrity of all the people whose advice you're giving it to.

I will take reliability over speed. You can mess up your HDD using HDAT2, but I indicated the menu to use. Yes you'd Zero Fill because it works for what you know which is using it on a blank HDD, but you didn't take care to formulate your advice to protect the data of other people who might assume as assumption is what most people do, that Zero FIll is the de facto go to gold standard for HDD testing, they they will be royally p*ss*d off when they trash their data and of course most people don't back up their data. Yes they should, but you told them Zero Fill is for testing HDDs.

I'm telling you that HDAT2 is for testing HDDs and for non destructively checking for bad sectors, it works, it never destroys data if you just check for bad sectors and don't repair. It will reliably check for bad sectors in every circumstance and will never destroy data.

Dude, you need to relax and check yourself. No, I've not used HDAT which is why I checked the vendor's website and found this: "It will not execute in a DOS session under Windows. You should make a DOS boot floppy disk". It's clearly a DOS program. And that big rant about not having a clue was way off the mark - I built, supported and repaired PCs for over 10 years before moving on to more interesting roles in the field.

My disdain for DOS was based on knowledge of products which are capable of carrying out far more complex disk operations than simple error checking from within a Windows OS. There's no excuse for needing DOS with a modern Windows operating system at your disposal, I should be able to error check a disk without taking my machine offline for hours on end - don't know about you but my main PC and the handful of servers in my house all do something useful.

Just seen your follow-up where you're also going off the handle about someone suggesting zero-fill methods - we're talking about error checking this drive. You know, in this deal that we're commenting on. The one that comes from the parcel man with no data on it. I think you should have an early night.

Thanks Shonk and TickingTock - I'll check those out. I already mentioned I was going to try WinDLG first anyway, just wasn't sure if it supported this particular drive/enclosure.

SeaTools for Windows - made by Seagate but works with all hard drives.
Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows - made by Western Digital but works with all hard drives.

Both also offer DOS versions but you're trying to stay a way from those :P.

I was very tempted to purchase this drive and before the boxing had even finished, the deal is over!
I've spent too much money on PC parts/related hardware over the last month, so maybe it's a good thing.

whatever

lets say everyone's a plum here like you said
there's no way in hell they are going to be capable of making a usb stick with dos and hdat2
and get to run it

if they just want to check they can do a full read test without a zero fill

im stating what i would do
and thats a zero fill and read back


Here you go the plum test

The red flag here is the word presumption! This is your fatal error in your advice. Fatal errors are always bad and therefore your advice equates to bad advice. Especially as you place the advice in a forum whereby the higher quotient has no experience and therefore can't know all the possible outcomes of using the advice given.

Will your advice given any circumstance protect data loss? Answer most definitely NO. Will your advice used in the wrong circumstance destroy data? Answer most definitely YES. Therefore your advice is bad advice for the simple purpose of testing HDDs.

well the presumtion is they will test it before they put any data on it
you also have to manually delete the partition before being able to zero fill

the ahci orom doesnt do anthing for dos
dos is limited to pio mode only so as i said 16.6 megabytes a second

HDAT2 works with AHCI. It runs in seconds from a bootable USB drive. It works reliably and isn't slow, although that depends on your hardware.

You're seriously telling people to test a HDD drive using Zero Fill? That's absurd! You make the assumption that there's no data on the drive. Remember the audience here, mostly noobs, some of which may likely want to test their HDD non destructively whereby they have data already on the drive!

Think logically here. Noob tests their new blank HDD with Zero Fill. Now they're the HDD testmeister for HDDs, their other noob mate heres about this and thinks his HDD needs testing as it's been playing up. Mr testmeister goes in for the Zero Fill win and loses a mate for train wrecking his data. A little knowledge is useful in the right circumstances but one size doesn't fit all with a Zero Fill test, in the wrong circumstances it will be a disaster.

I only had 3 then
here u go
https://s5.postimg.org/3uuw50mdz/Untitled.png

the americans got all the 7200 rpm drives (december 2015 build)
i got mine direct from wd netherlands warehouse on release day and they where all jan 2016

that guy is a scammer

ripped off - one is a 6tb :wink:

fishmaster is in a right crank

You bought five and didn't even get one hgst 7200rpm drive?
Who did you buy your current ones from?

I'm not holding out a lot of hope for the marc.maurin one to appear soon as it obviously hasn't been posted using Yodel as reported as they said it would have arrived by now and have nothing for my address at the local depot. Without a tracking number, which the seller wouldn't supply yet, they can't tell for sure if they have it.

There's no need to use hdat2 its limited by pio mode so 16 meg a second will take an age on an 8tb drive

use something like hdtune pro zero fill and then verify it
if there's any bad or weak sectors they will be remapped

yes its nice to see the slow sectors in hdat2 but man does it take an age
and yes it is dos

the only time i would consider hdat2 these days is with a broken drive that i wanted to force remap all bad sectors

It depends if it works with your AHCI implementation or not, as it's faster with AHCI enabled. However I usually disable AHCI temporarily in the system BIOS for best compatibility. It takes a couple of hours on 1TB HDD and so on and so forth. It's a lot better tool than CHKDSK. I tell you what why not go try it instead of just guessing, which so far has failed you!

Absolute nonsense, these ill informed comments annoy me. You have no experience of this tool, I do, I've recommended it because it does the job properly. You assume it's DOS because of the ASCII text. It's very very easy to make a bootable USB stick. Then again if you actually did some research first you'd have found that out yourself. Assumption makes fools out of us all. Please don't assume.

HDAT2 is used by people that actually have a clue, if you don't then don't assume, go find out for yourself. A screenshot should not make a decision for you, if you make decisions based on very limited data i.e. a screenshot, then you won't get that far testing your hardware properly anyway. It also says to me you don't know very much about testing hardware, so you should listen to people that do so you'd learn something. That's what I've always done, and it's worked for me so far.

Just ordered another that will be 5 i have

Here's what they are inside btw
https://s5.postimg.org/wkz8bbudx/image.jpg

Anyone got any recommendation for software similar to HDAT2 that doesn't require getting down and dirty with DOS boot media? The retro coolness of DOS is long gone and I see no reason why a tool of this nature should still rely on it these days.

never tried HDAT2 out. Guessing it runs around the same speed as any other chkdsk and so on however (flippin ages)

Does it have to be run before you Windows boots or can you run the test inside Windows? I'm NOT testing the C Drive.

So when I get a new drive what test should I be running in HDAT2 to make sure the drive is working correctly?

1-2 months dispatch time lol.

Seller information:
Amazon.co.uk
Usually dispatched within 1 - 2 months.

WD80EZZX-11CSGA0. I have two in my Synology NAS. Both working fine.



I found it very easy. After doing the first drive, the second one only took a minute or two since I now know where the plastic tabs are inside and that the middle part slides backwards. :smiley:

Yes. I used a couple of plastic spudgers.

Wow, checked Scan for a comparison on bare 8TB drives and their cheapest was £220, hot from me! Now if only I could spare that atm, Ceph would love it!

They gave you a slightly better offer than me...

Years ago a large HDD manufacturer had a problem with a lot of one particular model of drive. The official test tool certified many drives as functional while they were clearly faulty. After a lot of complaints and evidence of erroneous tests the manufacturer decided that the test software was flawed and produced incorrect and inconsistent results.

The experts don't always get it right.

I've never used flubit. Is it delivered by them then? How about returns and warranty afterwards?

I work in the industry and use HDAT2 because it works reliably and is free. I don't use Spinrite because of obvious reasons.

Interesting. I've never heard of that before, I'll have to give it a try. Any idea how they get a lower price? Do flubit sell the item or does someone else?

Spinrite is snake oil. Ask yourself this simple question, how can a single programmer (Steve Gibson), produce a better hard drive utility than all the massive drive manufacturers combined(all their money, scientists, and technicians)? Also if you read comments from people who work in the drive industry on Gibson and Spinrite you will also get told its capabilities are nonsense. He would have been bought out for tens of millions and be sitting on a beach in the Caribbean if Spinrite is what it claims to be.

When I posted this deal it was almost instantly removed as Spam, and then relisted with completely different wording to my own. This is not the deal as I posted it ,
Voted cold and creepy by me

Thanks for that :smile:

Use HDAT2 to test the drive.

http://www.hdat2.com/

When these came up on HotUKDeals a couple of weeks ago I got a flubit offer of £149. Arrived yesterday, brand new in sealed packaging.

I bought 12 of those drives from the cheapest seller called marc.maurin on 7th July. Got an email the next day saying they were dispatched. Estimated delivery time is 16 Jul 2016 to 26 Jul 2016. Not sure why they would take so long to deliver considering they're coming from the UK?

There's no tracking info either. It just says that the carrier is Yodel. I'm not sure how they can be sold so cheap for £144 when everywhere else is at least £200. Has anybody received an order from that seller?

Does anybody know a good diagnostic tool to use to check the drives aren't faulty? What diagnostic should I run?

It's 100% accurate. I said they were from a seller called marc.maurin.

​Not quite accurate. Amazon's own price is £163.10.

I was going to do exactly same. HGST inside convinced me to buy it to be honest.

As long as you're OK with losing the warranty on the drive, yes. That's what I'll be doing whenever it turns up. After running a full diagnostic while it's still in it's enclosure that is - you wouldn't want to void the warranty then find it's DOA or has some bad sectors lurking in wait.

I'm hoping the WD disk diag tool will work on these, if not, not sure what I'll use, any suggestions?

So is it totally safe to take it out and put inside my PC permanently?

Maybe at the £145 from amazon (even with a little wait) but not this price 0f £163 and defo not with a 1-2 month wait, sorry cold from me.

I believe it is a re-branded HGST He8 drive but at 5400rpm instead of 7200, and TLER disabled which doesn't affect me as I'm using RAID 0.

1 to 2 months until dispatch now.
I ordered one 10 days ago and although it was supposedly dispatched a day later it still hasn't arrived and asking for tracking details just resulted in me being told they'd be supplied from today. This was through a third party on Amazon.

I believe only the smaller versions are encrypted as I haven't seen any reports on these being encrypted.
They also aren't hgst drives, only early versions contained those as WD didn't have drives ready. I was told mine would be an early version with a 7200rpm drive but I'm not holding out much hope given this sellers other emails.
These will be 5400rpm WD drives based on the red but with different firmware tailored for single drives instead of NAS use.

Showing as £144.39 + £0.59 delivery (BRAND NEW) + 2 yr warranty. Not bad.

FYI - http://www.servethehome.com/wd-book-8tb-5400rpm-wd80ezzx-benchmarks/

The drives are hardware encrypted. You cannot turn this encryption off. There is a password option, but even if you do not use this, the drives are still always encrypted. The electronics that do the encryption are built into the enclosure. The encryption/decryption key is built into a chip in the enclosure. The user has no access to this key.

Suppose the enclosure fails, and you cannot get it repaired easily. You may think that you can simply remove one of the drives and put it (for example) in a docking bay. However, the information on the drive is unreadable without the decryption key - the decryption key that is built into the enclosure: the drives are not readable outside the enclosure. It does not matter that the drives themselves may be fine: without the enclosure they are useless.
Hmmmm

I bought two last week. The drive inside is a wd80ezzx. It seems this drive is only used for these as i can't find it on its own, appears it's a rebranded HGST but at 5400rpm. From my reading up on it it's a good drive. I am using them in my synology.

The casing is quite difficult to get off and i snapped a couple of clips on both units but wasn't really bothered as i don't need the enclosure.

Very good way of getting 8TB drives IMO

Does anyone know what drive is inside, and how much hassle is it to remove the drive, can it be done without damaging the enclosure?

Thanks