3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache: $100+Tax Seagate

[regpfj]

Seagate Barracuda XT ST33000651AS hidden inside silly external enclosure. Rip/saw/cut/tear/destroy the candy shell to get at the yummy rotating center.


At Microcenter: http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0355670

 

[videopho]

how can you be so sure?
I'd love to rid of the enclosure and jam the drive into a 1394/esata enclosure for my DVR.
For 3TB this is one HOT price nonetheless.

 

[Kaido]

lol, 3 terabytes for a hundred dollars.

...lol

 

[gevorg]

So tempting to build home A/V server at these prices. You can fit over 100 Blu-Ray movies on this thing and play 'em anywhere around the house.

 

[MarkLuvsCS]

Does anyone know if they still have heat problems with external Seagate drives?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3858/the-worlds-first-3tb-hdd-seagate-goflex-desk-3tb-review/7

Ever since the 1.5tb / 2tb QC issue I have avoided Seagate ever since.

 

[theeedude]

What's the model number of the internal hard drive?

 

[Pardus]

has this inside

Purchased 5. All five were Seagate Barracuda XT ST33000651AS 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache drives

 

[CosmosRewind]

OOS, darn. Hope the bare drives get this low soon.

 

[bob2k]

There is a catch to these drives... I have also been looking at these drives even before they were posted here for a raid nice 4+ disc raid setup.

The main problem is the warranty. It's cheap because you only get a 1 year warranty instead of the usual 5 years for the retail non-enclosured Seagate drives. Upon conducting some "it's too good to be true" research, I found that the drives are in a shell that indicates if they were opened thus violating even the minimal warranty. Whether Seagate was smart enough to mark these drives differently to prevent people just claiming they bought the retail drives with the 5 year warranties, I have found no information as of yet.

For people who just want some big storage now or don't care about rolling the dice for using them in raid, then they are probably just fine. For serious raid enthusiasts, I'd say think long and hard before you buy... I am on the fence, but I think I will pass until I have more info. Warranties matter...

 

[Pariah]

Whether Seagate was smart enough to mark these drives differently to prevent people just claiming they bought the retail drives with the 5 year warranties, I have found no information as of yet.

It's pretty much guaranteed that Seagate marks the serial numbers of the actual drives as being used in external models. You can verify it at there site for confirmation:

http://support.seagate.com/customer/en-US/warranty_validation.jsp?form=0

 

[videopho]

How difficult is it to get inside the case?
Is it screwed in or snap close/open type?
Once you open the case, is there a 'warranty' seal to be cracked?

I wanted to use the drive for my new dvr storage. I just bought a Sans Digital MTP1C case (US3/eSata) like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816111153

 

[wirednuts]

holy balls i was just about to spend 70 for 2tb... i dont have the money anymore though. oh well. hdd prices will never rise.

 

[lokiju]

If it's still in stock tomorrow, I think I'll buy 2 of them.

Oh sweet, my local store has 10+ of them in stock.

Guess I can just run over on lunch tomorrow and get them.

 

[djnsmith7]

OOS in Santa Clara, CA as well...darn...

 

[WHipLAsh13]

Wow this is a great deal. Will have to head over to Westbury during lunch tomorrow.

 

[theeedude]

OOS in Santa Clara, CA as well...darn...

Still available online though
Shipping is $5 + $1/drive.

 

[einstein4pres]

Well, this certainly looks like a good deal. I'm a little torn over having to deal with the issues surrounding 3TB drives. I'm on an old P35 mobo. I'll need to partition this as two drives on Windows 7, right? Should I expect other complications (other than driver updates)?

 

[superHARD]

Will these work in hardware raid?

 

[SuPrEIVIE]

how does one drive of these compare to two wd6400aaks in software raid 0? Would like this just to free one sata socket.

 

[JBT]

Well, this certainly looks like a good deal. I'm a little torn over having to deal with the issues surrounding 3TB drives. I'm on an old P35 mobo. I'll need to partition this as two drives on Windows 7, right? Should I expect other complications (other than driver updates)?

I'd like to know about this too. I'd honestly like to RAID 1 the drive. But I also have a P35 chipset...

 

[lokiju]

Woohoo got two of them from my local Microcenter store and they had probably 20+ more in stock as well.

 

[einstein4pres]

I'd like to know about this too. I'd honestly like to RAID 1 the drive. But I also have a P35 chipset...

Well, the best info I've found:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3981/...b-and-my-book-essential-3tb-drives-reviewed/2

If the bios doesn't support UEFI: limited to 2Tb boot partition, but can still use drive. But I'm still not sure.
If you're on XP: nothing works.
RAID: not sure. I think I saw a news site say that Intel's software RAID didn't support 3Tb drives. But I can't find a source.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/256577-32-motherboard-supports-booting-larger-raid#t1798966

Note: I'm not confident enough in all of this to have actually purchased the drive yet. I am not planning on using RAID.

 

[videopho]

Got mine yesterday.
Plugged it in fired it up explorer detected and saw 2.7TB.
Seems like everything ok but when I ran win 7 image back up to the drive, about five minutes into backup OS saw an i/o error and aborts the backup.
I tried this 5 times and all ended up getting the same error five times.
Should I return it?

EDIT: This one is a DUD and it's going back. Besides, Seatools also shows it is a 32mb cache drive which is not what the OP said it would be. This is my first Seagate in 5 years and this will be my last buy from it.

 

[wirednuts]

i dont know if its still like this anymore but years ago it was pretty obvious the cheap external drives had really low spec parts inside... and buying retail was always worth the extra cash

 

[Apex]

Seagate Barracuda XT ST33000651AS hidden inside silly external enclosure. Rip/saw/cut/tear/destroy the candy shell to get at the yummy rotating center.


At Microcenter: http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0355670

Yep, mine had the Barracuda XT in it.