I bought this 12Tb Seagate EXOS X16 for dirt cheap, but is there something wrong with it?
This hard drive was bought from East Digital, a simple Shopify store based in Hong Kong. They have some awesome deals and have a decent reputation from their eBay store as well as from posts on an Australian deals website called OZBaragin. But is the hard drive worth it, and does it even work? Let’s find out!
The hard drive model number is: Seagate 12TB ST12000NM001G Exos X16 512E 3.5″
Here is the video of the Cheap 12Tb Seagate EXOS X16:
Timestamps:
0:00 – 1:17 Where did I buy it from?
1:18 – 1:51 Does it actually work?
1:52 – 3:50 Pricing and ‘Cost Analysis’
3:51 – 4:33 Does it run well?
4:34 – 5:59 Cons? (Downsides)
6:00 – 6:39 Pro’s? (Upsides)
6:40 Should you do this?
Pricing and Cost Analysis:
I paid a total of $240NZD, including shipping, so that’s around $140USD as of the 25 of November 2024. Not a bad deal at all. If I even try any hard drive in NZ for $240NZD I could probably only get between a 6-8tb drive and that’s not even an enterprise grade one. A similar 12tb iron wolf is $499 on special, and an actual seasonal expos 12tb could be up to $646.30.
Honestly, it’s not a bad deal for $20 a TB or $0.02 a GB if I round. Looking at pricespy NZ not even the top 10 price per TB come close to the $20 per TB that I paid with the lowest in New Zealand being $36 per TB, so I know this is a pretty good deal. This is more storage than I’ll ever need at 12TB, but now I won’t have to worry for a while about running out of storage. Usually, I wouldn’t chuck everything on one drive, but I have multiple drives nearly full now, and my 3TB external drive just filled up over two years, so I was really in need of more storage. I probably overspent a bit, considering I could have gotten the 6TB for much less, and this 12TB drive might just fail me before I even come to close to filling it up at my current rate.
Usually, a good rule of thumb is to not buy more storage than you need according to the $ cost per TB, but it really depends on your circumstances. With more projects coming up for the channel I think 12TB might be a good call.
How has this drive been running?
Well, it’s been just about two and half weeks now, and I’d like to say everything is good, but… I gotcha yea even thing is fine I have the drive 9.88TB now so not too much used but no issues in terms of data corruption or lag from the actual drive. One thing to point out from this particular EXOS drive is its actually really loud when its being used like I can hear it working when its on, but its all good because I knew it was designed for a data center.
What are some downsides by buying a hard drive like this:
1. First is a warranty. If anything happens, I could be out of luck. They are in Hong Kong, and while for now they look like they are upholding their warranty according to online reviews, who knows how long this website will stay open or if they will honour it in two years’ time, for example. I may also have to ship the drive back if it is not working but I cannot confirm this. This is not to diss East Digital, but it’s just a risk factor there.
2. I am storing sensitive information like photo’s and videos, but I have redundancy, all the footage you see from this channel are backed up from my PC to my server’s hard drive, from which it is backed up to backblaze as well as google photo’s, so I am covered if anything goes wrong. I can see this being an issue where someone wants a cheap drive and doesn’t back up properly.
3. Keep in mind some of the drives listed on East Digital are new old stock, like the manufacturing date is a while back for some drives, so you might not be getting the better reversion or upgrade of a drive so keep that in mind. But I mean, as long as they are brand new, it should be fine.
4. East Digital runs out of stock quickly as the drive I purchased is already sold out from their store
5. Not really a downside but just good advice is to check the failure rate of a drive online to find out what you are in for the long run.
What are the upsides:
1. Its cheap, the drive shipped quickly with good packaging.
2. East Digital has a wide range of drives, even refurbished ones, but personally, I prefer brand-new drives.
3. East Digital has a decent online reputation to uphold and has for a while now, as shown on OZBaragin and their eBay store.
4. The store also has some specials occasionally that can put even Amazon to shame in terms of pricing.
5. Lastly, It took around 2 weeks to come, which was pretty quick through Hong Kong Post.
Basically you need to way up if the money you are saving is worth it or not.
YSTech: https://ystech.org
YSTech Article: https://ystech.org/dirt-cheap-hard-drives
East Digital Shopify: https://east-digital.myshopify.com/
Seagate 12TB ST12000NM001G Exos X16 (East Digital): https://bit.ly/3Zbb40G
East Digital eBay (I bought from their Shopify store): https://www.ebay.com.au/str/eastdigital
OZBargain: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals/eastdigitalhk.com
-YS