HGST Touro 500GB USB3.0 portable external HDD $34.00 (FS over $49) @ B&H

[VirtualLarry]

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1274244-REG/hgst_0s03799_500gb_touro_mobile_usb.html

Seems like a good deal? Cheapest 500GB portable external on ebay that's not a refurb, is like $55. Same deal with Walmart.com. Then again, you can get a 1TB for around that price too.

Edit: Forgot to mention, these come with a FREE padded, "HGST branded" soft case. A $8.97 value, or something like that.

Not the best case I've seen, but for FREE, it's decent and I'll take it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

No one wants to comment? I haven't bought HDDs in some time, and I know that I've seen some 1TB portable external HDDs in the past for as low as $39.99 FS on sale at Newegg, but it seems like HDD prices have (very slowly) been creeping up slightly, and there is some talk that the SSD / NAND "shortage" may turn into an overall "storage shortage", as demand shifts to HDDs, after the HDD mfgs have already decreased factory capacity, to turn their production to the current state of the market from a few months ago. (HDD unit sales have been down, now they're seeing an uptick again. At least, according to the TomsHardware UK article I read recently, that was posted in one of the technical forums.)

Is this a decent deal? Or did I overpay, buying a qty of these? I hope I didn't. Cheapest 1TB I could find was $55 shipped, at the time I ordered these. But currently, Newegg has a (I think Seagate?) 1TB portable external for $49.99 AP FS.

So, possibly you would want to look at that one.

As far as GB/$ goes, Newegg's ebay site has 2TB portable externals for like $69.99 FS. (Or possibly that was BestBuy's ebay site, I forget. It was a "new" drive though.)

Edit: You can also get Orico-branded USB3.0 2.5" external portable enclosures for like $6-8 on sale, at Newegg, and make your own portable external HDD. I suppose that to match the price of this deal, you would have to find a new 500GB HDD for $26. I don't know what they go for, but that sounds lower than I've seen them for. Then again, you could always go with a 7200RPM, or an SSD.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Oh Larry... You have said yourself - no one is going to buy 500GB for $35 when you can get 4 times storage (2TB) at twice the price, $70.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thanks for the comment. Yeah, for your average home user these may not make sense.

But for my purposes, selling a client a portable external HDD to back up their data, when swapping to a new PC, or whatnot - a qty., at a lower absolute cost, is better for me than just cheaper GB/$.

It looks better, if you pull out a "new" HDD for each client (not that I have that many, but maybe in the future?), to do the work, rather than re-use some HDD over again for multiple clients.

 

[VirtualLarry]

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1273855-REG/wd_wdbbgb0040hbk_nesn_4tb_my_boo.html

WD 4TB My Book Desktop USB 3.0 External Hard Drive

$109.99 FS (I think FS)

This one is the DESKTOP(3.5") version, NOT a portable (2.5") version.

Probably shuckable? (Minus warranty.)

 

[Jen]

i prefer 2.5 for portable drive storage its easier for me to carry around. i would like a 4TB to 5TB one that is of quality not sure of seagate. Sorry didnt mean to derail this thread.

Jen

 

[VirtualLarry]

Do they make 5TB portable externals? I think that I might have seen a few while looking up drives myself. They seemed a bit expensive, though, and that's a lot of data to lose if dropped or misplaced.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Seagate-5TB...979403?hash=item465ada7e8b:g:CbMAAOSw241YWTwR

Yep, $159.99 FS, for a 5TB Seagate portable external.