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Why is that external drives are often cheaper than internal?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
BestBuy will price match Amazon. So getting the real deal sounds better.
You local Best Buy will also probably have 5 hard disks total. The chances of getting exactly what you want (looking at the list in the linked site) is minimal.
If you are trying to build a NAS or similar then my suggestion is go with shucked WD EasyStore externals, you need to either use molex to sata power to bypass the 2.2v issue or tape the pin but they are WD Whites inside and work very well from my experience. I just keep waiting for the 14TB's to fall a little further so I can replace one of my 5TB parity drives with that so I can grow my array.
This seems all Amazon links only (with affiliate codes). Given their known counterfeit problems and fake reviews, I would recommend avoiding it for important things like disk drives. Plus, they are not guaranteed to be the cheapest anyway. If you need to buy a drive, I would recommend local brick and mortar store first, and some sort of proper aggregator (which looks at multiple sites, not just Amazon) second.
I’d buy a lot of things used but never a harddrive or any storage/backup media. Not sure if these are countereit though, I’ve never seen any bootlegs sold as used ever..
Every now and then you find someone with a conscience selling things on ebay and it is just a pleasant experience and restores some faith in humanity. That is what inspired me to sell it instead of having it collect dust in a drawer for 10 years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever tried to buy tech at a B&M store? They will have obsolete products that have been on the shelves for years listed at the original MSRP. I'm sure there are exceptions but this is generally terrible advice.
If possible, Micro Center or Frys. Frys is somehow profitable but with dwindling stock at every California/Nevada location I’ve been to recently (maybe an indicator of higher prices?), but Micro Center is great.
I've long thought Amazon has terrible search and sort options for things like computer parts. Trying to buy e.g. RAM is a nightmare.
Why is that external drives are often cheaper than internal?
I wonder if they are lesser quality or worse specs. External hard drives often don't even show the performance characteristics other than capacity on the boxes. This is different for internal drives from what I recall.
Manufacturers would rather over produce high quality drives than risk not being able to fulfill orders. Eventually the surplus gets put in an external housing and rebranded for consumer use.
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/7fx0i0/wd_easy...