6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Happy Friday afternoon to all.
Am considering buying another 6TB WD Red drive, to add to my NAS.
A quick google shows, incredibly, prices have barely moved by more than a few pounds in over a year!
They are still hovering around the £200 range per drive.
(though annoyingly, I have just missed the only price drop about 10 days ago)
http://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/Deskto...uct/B00LO3KR96
Still, overall it seems to me that it's surely overdue for the big HD manufacturers to come out with a new capacity range, and for existing prices to fall thereafter.
So... -> Is it a bad time to buy now?
I don't mind the odd £10 here and there, but I'd be miffed if they dropped by £50 in the next month.
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Depends how urgent your need is!
If you are right up against the limits and you have 100GB of irreplaceable video to store, now is a really good time to buy.
If it's a speculative 'I'd like one of these to improve my bragging rating' then probably better to wait, (although if prices drop, the bragging value drops too - well known fact!) :)
Being slightly more serious...
It is still relatively new, tech, although the 10 TB HGST helium filled drives are probably the drives to push the rest. Whether prices at the 6TB will fall is pretty much guess work, but if you don't have an immediate need, you might just as well wait. Short of a big currency fluctuation, (or an earthquake under the factory) I can't see prices rising.
The trend on the link is downwards anyway, although it would be interesting to overlay £$ exchange rates over that.
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
I think we are still waiting for HAMR to happen. Have been waiting for some time, no sign of the technology turning up any time soon.
The only way the price will drop is if you buy one, so you might be doing us a favour at least ;)
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DanceswithUnix
The only way the price will drop is if you buy one, so you might be doing us a favour at least ;)
Well, in that case i'll be telling my wife : "As an altruistic measure".... LOL
Edit: Thanks PeterB too. Appreciate the response. Am not getting for bragging rights, i just reckon ive about 2 months worth left before i run out of space, so was trying to plan ahead.
Have set up on CamelCamelCamel to email if it drops, and will wait a few more weeks
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Just get a normal one and paint it red yourself? ;)
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
i get worried with drives this size unless they are in a raid array, lots of data to loose :( i would wait until black friday and see if you could get one a few pounds cheaper :)
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MSIC
Well, in that case i'll be telling my wife : "As an altruistic measure".... LOL
Edit: Thanks PeterB too. Appreciate the response. Am not getting for bragging rights, i just reckon ive about 2 months worth left before i run out of space, so was trying to plan ahead.
Have set up on CamelCamelCamel to email if it drops, and will wait a few more weeks
I know, there was a bit of tongue in cheek!
It is a tricky decision, and rhe sweet spot in terms of cost per byte is usually 'the size below' so 3 or 4 TB drives are probably the best value for money. Of course that doesn't help if you are looking to replace 4TB drives and have no more physical space.
You could look at external caddies of course, and populate those with additional drives, and if your Mobo has USB 3 you will get pretty good speeds. Thunderbolt 2 would be faster, but I can't think of any Mobos with TB2. So by the time you have done all that, you have probably spent as much as you would on the disks anyway, although you will have gained more space and flexibility. eSATA might be another possibility if you have spare ports, or an aSATA.expansion card may be a cheaper route if you have a spare PCIe slot.
But it might be worth waiting a couple of months until after Christmas, there might be some offers around.
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
peterb
You could look at external caddies of course, and populate those with additional drives, and if your Mobo has USB 3 you will get pretty good speeds. Thunderbolt 2 would be faster, but I can't think of any Mobos with TB2. So by the time you have done all that, you have probably spent as much as you would on the disks anyway,
External USB3 drives are often as cheap or cheaper than internal drives now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Graywoodford
i get worried with drives this size unless they are in a raid array, lots of data to loose :(
I'm always confused by statements like this. If data, of any size, is important, back it up.
(and RAID is not backup)
That said, I've just "gained" 2x 4TB backup drives as I've had a rethink and realised I really don't need to backup *everything*
e.g. easily re-downloadable things like my steam directory (~3TB) or TV shows / movies (~5TB)
( 100MB Virgin media cable FTW)
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Well well.... Amazon just dropped the price to 179.99 inc free delivery.
I've bought at this price, I cant see it dropping another 20 quid over the next few weeks (and feel free to laugh at me if I'm wrong!)
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
mikerr
External USB3 drives are often as cheap or cheaper than internal drives now.
I'm always confused by statements like this. If data, of any size, is important, back it up.
(and RAID is not backup)
That said, I've just "gained" 2x 4TB backup drives as I've had a rethink and realised I really don't need to backup *everything*
e.g. easily re-downloadable things like my steam directory (~3TB) or TV shows / movies (~5TB)
( 100MB Virgin media cable FTW)
Absolutely, RAID is NOT a substitute for backup. It is good for resilience though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MSIC
Well well.... Amazon just dropped the price to 179.99 inc free delivery.
I've bought at this price, I cant see it dropping another 20 quid over the next few weeks (and feel free to laugh at me if I'm wrong!)
Good call!, so the answer was "Don't buy now (when you posted), wait a few days! :)
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Well I've just had 10 land at the office today..... :)
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DR
Well I've just had 10 land at the office today..... :)
Members only competition?
I'll need 5 though, will do a lovely review.
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
If I were you I would wait till black Friday and cyber Monday, but if you won't get them in good prices on those two dates then price drops should be between January and Febuary.
Unless you are in quite rush, then prices are quite good currently, there were no natural disaster or fake disaster in Taiwan or something so it is fine time to get one or two.
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
I've been waiting for the 6/8tb drives to fall to a reasonable price to update my server. If there are any deals on Black Friday I will be grabbing a few.
Re: 6TB WD Red drives - A good or bad time to buy?
I was in a similar boat... I decided to just look around on ebay and found 4TB WD Red's for 90-100... Picked it up and has full 3 year WD warranty etc and were unused! Not worth waiting and paying extra for the 6/8TB version IMO..