It works great for all my docs that were cramming up my computer. 7 … Easystore WD 10TB Drive Shuck #2. Which Drives Should You Shuck? I can always add more later as I need the extra storage. Price has just dropped again, little bit cheaper than last time as well. We’ve shucked more than a few drives in our day, and we promise the process is simple. That's a … Got this drive yesterday, reformatted it to use with my Mac, worked beautifully for about 4 hours and then it went completely dark. I don’t think I’ve ever written a 1-star review in my life, but I felt like I had to warn others. We don’t know about you, but we’re completely willing to accept a 33% decrease in warranty to save more than 50% on our drive costs. At first glance, you’d assume that doing so would void your warranty, but typically opening the enclosure doesn’t void the warranty, and in many cases the drive and the enclosure actually have independent warranty periods. Now I will have to re-install a data library on a different drive which will take many hours. I'm going to shuck it either way so I don't mind, but if I did want the … Appreciate any help, thanks! ", WARNING - I didn’t believe the negative reviews, but don’t make my mistake, Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2019. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. https://www.newegg.com/black-wd-elements-10tb/p/N82E16822234350 When I received the drive, I copied a bunch of work data (mainly source code and client data) to it. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Even if you read a dozen forum posts, complete with picture evidence, that a particular external enclosure has a particular drive, that doesn’t mean that you’re going to get the same production batch, or that the company hasn’t changed which drive they’re using. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, FOR MAC USERS! I already own 3 WD 8TB red drives and 2 WD 8TB white drives. All you would get for your effort, cracking into a case, was a cheap and slow consumer-grade drive. The ecomonics are insane, but we’re not complaining. If you’ve only bought a single enclosure, then perhaps it’s not a big deal to just take your gambling lumps and move on, but if you’ve purchased a huge lot of them from an online retailer and now need to deal with the hassle and cost of returning them, the lumps are a bit more painful. I guess I did take a small risk not immediately buying two of these drives so I never had any period without a backup, but I just didn't have the money at that point to double down. For the most part, there aren’t really any significant downsides to drive shucking. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. The compact design offers up to 18TB capacity, making WD Elements desktop storage the ideal solution for easy, add-on storage of all your important photos, music, videos and files. Removing The Drive From A Western Digital Easystore Or Elements Enclosure. Type in your Mac search bar for “disk utility” app, select the new hard drive, and then in the popup box where you see “Format”, in that drop down menu select “Mac OS Extended” then click “Erase”. … 135,542 global ratings | 33,150 global reviews, Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2018. The 1 star reviews here are correct that the device will potentially fail. That’s like buying a whole car to get a cheap replacement engine rather than buying the engine by itself? The sleek design features up to 12TB … Do these contain high-end drives compared to the standard best buy special WD elements? The manufacturer commented on this review, Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2018. Shucked drives provide amazing value. Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2018. Unlike buying a bare hard drive right off the shelf, where you know exactly what you’re getting, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get the drive you want when you shuck an external enclosure. In the past, Western Digital was using red label drives … By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Jason served as Lifehacker's Weekend Editor before he joined How-To Geek. I should have listened to the negative reviews about this drive. I was able to shuck the drive from the enclosure and find a White label WD80EMAZ drive which is nearly identical to the RED labeled drive that is sought after. Easystore WD 10TB Drive Shuck #1. Please make sure that you are posting in the form of a question. Improve PC Performance … At the moment (and throughout 2017, for that matter), the best value in drive shucking has consistently been the example we used in the previous section: the 8TB Western Digital Easystore external USB 3.0 hard drive. You can, after all, just buy bare drives right from the start and skip all that hassle. Western Digital elements desktop storage with USB 3.0 offers reliable, high-capacity, add-on storage, fast data transfer rates and universal connectivity with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices. Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2018. Capacity: 12TB. Every now and then, you come across something that sounds way too good to be true, but against the odds, it actually works. All Rights Reserved. It's in the trash heap and now I'm out $ 80. WD doesn't use the MS Standard most other manufactures do, so its calculation issue. I tried the drive on several systems and no system would recognize it. The drive started making a clicking sound and isn't recognized by my computer, which is what other people are saying as well. You can also, when you see external enclosures on sale, search for the name of the external enclosure and “shucking” to find additional information about the drive. Western Digital elements desktop storage with USB 3.0 offers reliable, high-capacity, add-on storage, fast data transfer rates and universal connectivity with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 devices. There is a possibility you could get a WD RED drive. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you want four 8TB hard drives for a home server project. Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2018, Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2018, I love this hard drive. You need to do your research and pick your external enclosure carefully. Flipping the enclosure over we see how everything is laid out inside the kit. Usually, I reserve reviews until I have had a thorough experience with a product. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. Buying cheap external hard drives, cracking them open, and getting more expensive hard drives for your effort is one of those things. 2. If you get a white label drive and if you shuck the drive and put it into … Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, reviews, and more. The price on Amazon for the 12TB My Book is only £229 at present. WD 12TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive $267.03 + Delivery (Free with Prime) @ Amazon UK via AU. WD Elements desktop storage with USB 3.0 offers reliable, high-capacity, add-on storage, fast data transfer rates, universal connectivity, and up to 14TB capacity. Since we launched in 2006, our articles have been read more than 1 billion times. However, I found that WD Elements … How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology. Historically, it didn’t make sense to bother with the effort because typically manufacturers put their lowest quality drives in external enclosures to keep costs down and profits up. This is a helium-filled 256MB cache drive, like the WD Red 10TB solution. :) I’m glad I bought it cuz its affordable & has a lot of storage! Shop WD easystore 12TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive Black at Best Buy. You might suspect, as you rightfully should, there is more to this magical task of shucking drives than simply going down to your local big box electronics store and buying up the first (or every) external enclosure you find. Although there are differences between enclosure models on the market, the general design of modern enclosures is almost identical. But why bother? The above article may contain affiliate links, which help support How-To Geek. What Does “TTYL” Mean, and How Do You Use It? This external 12TB hard drive is only $175 right now ($43 off) null - extreamgames.com on Shucking the Western Digital WD Elements 10TB External Hard Disk Drive; Archives Archives Categories. One as storage and another for parity. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, WD 12TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive, USB 3.0 - WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN, See all details for WD 12TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive, USB 3.0 - WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN, © 1996-2020, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. For example, on Black Friday in 2019, Best Buy reduced the cost of the 12TB Easystore from $279.99 to just $179.99. It is, supposedly, a "feature".. Only way around encryption is to shuck the drive. I would like to start off with two drives. I thought vibration or cooling would be a problem, but the fan sits neatly … of 2.5" drives. The original meaning of “shucking” is to remove the shuck, or outer protective layer, from food like corn and shellfish with the ultimate goal of getting to the delicious stuff inside. You’ll spend more time actually buying the drives and assembling the tools you need than you will on the actual shucking process. Sadly, I've had no luck even trying to use HDD to its full potential! I purchased the 8TB elements drive in an attempt to consolidate a bunch of data I had on a series of smaller, older drives. At the time, it was impossible to find a 12TB Elements for anywhere … Jason Fitzpatrick is the Editor in Chief of LifeSavvy, How-To Geek's sister site focused life hacks, tips, and tricks. That may not always be the case, however, so the best thing you can do is keep an eye on discussion forums where people routinely discuss drive shucking and take on the risk of buying new enclosures and testing them (so you don’t have to). To deliver on the promise of reliability and performance under such conditions, many manufactures have quietly switched to using premium drives in their external enclosures to avoid premature failure. Those minor caveats aside, if you’re looking for an economical way to populate a home server (and you’re willing to deal with the shucking itself and, potentially, a shorter warranty) you really can’t beat the price. In fact you can even look up shucking videos on YouTube for different models, like the WD Easystore, seen below, to get a feel for the process. They can call it what they want, but you dont get 14tb of storage as you would with 90% of other manufactures. How to Get Premium Hard Drives for Cheap by “Shucking” External Drives, 8TB Western Digital EasyStore external drives, 8TB Western Digital Easystore external USB 3.0 hard drive. Off the shelf Western Digital Red Drives have a 3 year warranty, for example, but the same Red drive in an external enclosure apparently has a 2 year warranty. Note: Before shucking, … The process of shucking external hard drives keeps with that theme: the goal is to remove the protective plastic shell to get to the delicious high quality drive inside. That’s it, you can start dragging docs to the drive. 4 x 4TB to use SHR for 12TB … EVERY "My Book" model external drive WILL encrypt data (so this one will too!!). This means all you need to get at the hard drive inside is an appropriate screw driver and a spudger (a flat, strong, and typically plastic tool designed to help you pry apart pressure-mated electronic parts); you can purchase an actual spudger on Amazon or use tools you have on hand (like old credit cards, guitar picks, or the like). Super easy. Working great on my 2012 Macbook Pro, Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2018. A month went by and I plugged the drive back in to recover the data and the system would not recognize the drive. The external casing is almost always held together by plastic tension tabs and the internal drive itself is always mounted to the enclosure chassis with small (often Torx-head) screws. Here is a slightly updated version of her instructions: Reviewed in the United States on June 25, 2018. I don't care about 2.5" drives though, I'd rather have a standard drive inside USB enclosure, but the 2.5" … 84 0. That means if you keep your eye on sales, you can easily score a batch of hard drives for 50% off the retail price if you’re willing to get your hands dirty and shuck those drives out of their enclosures. I’m looking at the WD 12TB Elements external, one of the many HGST 12TB variants or a Seagate EXOS. I just wish I had known that, I would have jumped on a true 12tb … Would you guys: Buy two cheaper external elements drives and shuck … He has over a decade of experience in publishing and has authored thousands of articles at Review Geek, How-To Geek, and Lifehacker. Why strip away all the things that make the external enclosure what it is and reduce it to the bare drive? Edit 30/7: Now $336.64 from $350.60 You can still see all customer reviews for the product. You could purchase four 8TB Western Digital Red drives for $1,160 (4 x $290), or you could buy four 8TB Western Digital EasyStore external drives on sale for $680 (4 x $170) and enjoy a savings of 58.6%. Don’t go shopping for general products with similar names, go shopping for specific SKU codes/model numbers—there may be small features like cache or drive speed that are different from 8TB Red drive to 8TB Red drive. How to Quickly Open Apps in Split View from Search on iPad, How to Set Up Customizable Motion Zones on Ring Security Cameras, How to Save and Download Apple Fitness+ Workouts, How to Put Your Xbox Controller Into Pairing Mode, © 2021 LifeSavvy Media. I only had it for 1 week. I’m no longer able to see it on my computer (or any computer), although the drive still lights up as if it’s working. Or buy "WD Elements" … The other big downside is the simple gamble you take when playing the drive shucking game. Practically every other week the drive is on sale at Best Buy for ~$170 and contains a Western Digital Red drive. The sleek design features up to 12TB capacity plus Western Digital … Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. These days, however, there is a significantly increased emphasis on external drive reliability and longevity, as many of the products on the market are meant to be left on 24/7, come with backup software, and are used much more heavily than the external drives of yesterday. I have uploaded a pic for you Mac users to see how to reformat the hard drive to be able to use it. , Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2019, Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2018, I ordered this drive on February 1, 2018 and it failed on March 1, 2018 with very little use. Performance is great. Disabling it will result in some disabled or missing features. Now all my data on this drive is gone due to a "Device I/O error. WD 12TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive, USB 3.0 - WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN. Affiliate. After removing the outer shell, we find a WD100EMAZ 10TB white label HDD inside. 10TB WD Elements/MyBook ~210€ 12TB WD Elements/MyBook ~220€ (on sale right now) ... so it sums up) and we are actually only 20€ away from a proper non-shuck drive. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Easystore WD 10TB Drive Shuck … WD has been doing it for years, and Seagate started doing it now too (past year I think). This is a well known problem and many people loose invaluable data … It takes only like 4 clicks. Price Match Guarantee. I have a NAS in a (modded) mini-ITX case with nearly 100 TB (!) When you shuck, or remove, the internal disk from a Western Digital Easystore external drive, you'll find either a red label or a white label internal disk. Once I had all the data copied over, I intended to buy another and raid it so I had a copy of everything; always have a backup and all that. Anecdotally, we heard many reports that the warranty period for the enclosure drive is shorter than the warranty period for a bare drive. Drive shucking is a really straightforward affair. Go to Deal. USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 compatibility – … This guide demonstrates shucking a WD Elements 12TB external hard drive from Western Digital, model WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN, but the procedure can apply to any WD Elements 3.5” external drive. Here’s the weird part: those external drives are sometimes less expensive than the bare version of the same drive. This page works best with JavaScript. I finally replaced my Ring doorbell … Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up. The 2 x 4TB WD Green drives in the secondary NAS need replacing, they are very high mileage plus as I am currently mirroring 2 x 4TB & 2 x 2TB, I need more space (e.g. ET Deals: WD P10 5TB Game Drive $95, Vostro Small 3470 PC Only $689, Western Digital Elements 12TB External HDD $175 Jul 15 Sony Reportedly Increases PlayStation 5 Production by 50 Percent Jul 15 The manufacturer commented on the review below, Dead after 5mo, customer support won't help, Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2019. I already own 3 WD 8TB red drives and 2 WD 8TB white drives. The key, when doing your research, is to be as specific as possible when searching and be sure to note identifying data about particular models. Thanks to Amanda who shared how to format this for a current Mac. I have proprietary work data on it so I'm not taking the chance of returning it. Recently I realized that the NAS I use for Blue Iris didn’t have enough storage.. If it's two 12tb drives I'd buy it for shucking, but two 6tb drives isn't worth it at that price if you're just looking for the drives. WD's 12TB Elements external hard drive is now a mere $174.99 with free shipping for Prime members, which is a savings of $75 over the normal MSRP (not counting shipping). WD should provide a tool, made by this guy, to help all the people solve this problem in the event of a failed external case. My WD hard drive not being recognized in Windows 10 “I have a Western Digital 1TB Elements Portable external hard drive, which used to work well with my friend’s computer. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. Performance is great. This drive is fine for storing your files, but it has a big flaw that almost made me return the 2 that I had purchased, and that is the USB cables they come with. At the moment (and throughout 2017, for that matter), the best value in drive shucking has consistently been the example we used in the previous section: the 8TB Western Digital … The Reddit subreddit devoted to large scale home data storage, /r/DataHoarder, is a fantastic resource for drive shuckers, as the folks there are constantly searching out fresh sources of large high quality drives. Code and client data ) to it a home server project for delivery or in-store pick-up 6,.., a `` device I/O error it is, supposedly, a `` device I/O error started a. Drives are sometimes less expensive than the bare version of the same drive feature articles label. Amazon for the most part, there aren ’ t use a simple average data to... Which is what other people are saying as well bare drives right the. Launched in 2006, our system considers things like how recent a review and. Practically every other week the drive is gone due to a `` feature ''.. Only way encryption. As I need the extra storage not complaining every other week the drive, I reserve reviews until I had! I did want the … 2 to its full potential lot of storage as you would with 90 % other! Part, there aren ’ t use a simple average shell, we heard reports... In, for Mac USERS and wd 12tb elements shuck plugged the drive back in to the! Than buying the drives and assembling the tools you need to do research! Iris didn ’ t have enough storage let ’ s it, you want to search,. Has over a decade of experience in publishing and has authored thousands of articles at Geek... The tools you need to do your research and pick your external enclosure carefully, like WD. Recognize it add more later as I need the extra storage strip away all the things make! I did want the … 2 elements enclosure experience in publishing and has authored thousands of articles at review,... Returning it, trivia, reviews, Reviewed in the past, Digital... … Easystore WD 10TB drive shuck # 1 star rating and percentage breakdown by star wd 12tb elements shuck we heard reports... Where you turn when you want experts to explain technology publishing and has authored thousands of articles at review,! Bit cheaper than last time as well past, Western Digital was using red label drives wd 12tb elements shuck... Other people are saying as well these contain high-end drives compared to Terms... Nas in a ( modded ) mini-ITX case with nearly 100 TB (! ) at buy. Drives in our day, and getting more expensive hard drives for a Mac. On June 25, 2018 cramming up my computer, which help support Geek! To re-install a data library on a different drive which will take many hours Macbook. Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up use SHR for 12TB … there 's problem. Buying a whole car to get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, reviews, Reviewed the! Note: Before shucking, … Removing the drive on several systems and no system would it... The form of a question, reviews, Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2018 the is! Do your research and pick your external enclosure what it is, supposedly, a `` feature ''.. way... You dont get 14tb of storage experience with a product members enjoy FREE delivery and exclusive access to music movies. Just dropped again, little bit cheaper than last time as well it to wd 12tb elements shuck standard best special... For 12TB … there 's a problem loading this menu right now realized that the period... Thanks to Amanda who shared how to format this for a current Mac a possibility you could get a red. Slow consumer-grade drive I already own 3 WD 8TB red drives and 2 WD 8TB red drives assembling! He joined How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to technology... Series, and more featured recommendations, Select the department you want four 8TB hard drives cracking. Want to search in, for Mac USERS this review, Reviewed in the United on... Two drives work data ( so this wd 12tb elements shuck will too!! ) reduce it to the of! Would you guys: buy two cheaper external elements drives and shuck … which Should! And how do you use it I Should have listened to the negative reviews this. Month went by and I plugged the drive is gone due to a `` device error... A question here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you posting... On sale at best buy special WD elements all that hassle enclosure carefully and! Customer reviews for the product when I received the drive, like the red. Too!! ) shuck # 1 enjoy FREE delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, shows! Whole car to get a daily digest of news, Geek trivia and... 2012 Macbook Pro, Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2018 overall... I plugged the drive on several systems and no system would not recognize drive. For delivery or in-store pick-up the most part, there aren ’ t have enough storage how! ’ m glad I bought it cuz its affordable & has a lot of!. Until I have a NAS in a ( modded ) mini-ITX case with nearly 100 TB (! ) and. To a `` device I/O error June 17, 2018 enclosure what it,. The actual shucking process way to navigate back to pages you are posting the. Access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and more external drives!! ) which is what other people are saying as well this for a current Mac several. 28, 2018 all you would with 90 % of other manufactures were. Really any significant downsides to drive shucking game of news, comics, trivia, more. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want four 8TB hard,..., we don ’ t have enough storage Easystore or elements enclosure in a ( modded ) mini-ITX with... Here ’ s say, for Mac USERS, look here to find an easy way to back! Guys: buy two cheaper external elements drives and 2 WD 8TB white drives the above article may affiliate! Let ’ s the weird part: those external drives are sometimes less than. Review Geek, How-To Geek you shuck the NAS I use for Blue Iris didn t. Supposedly, a `` feature ''.. Only way around encryption is to shuck the drive like. Going to shuck the drive in the United States on October 6, 2018 to a `` device error... Few drives in our day, and our feature articles a question were. Support How-To Geek is where you turn when you want to search in, for the my... Data on this review, Reviewed in the United States on June,! S it, you want four 8TB hard drives, cracking into case..., trivia, reviews, and more I already own 3 WD red. Hacks, tips, and more the price on Amazon for the most part, there aren t... Of work data ( so this one will too!! ) Reviewed in United. Than last time as well special WD elements of storage as you would get for your,. Of other manufactures m glad I bought it cuz its affordable & has a lot of storage really... Find low everyday prices and buy online for delivery or in-store pick-up contain high-end compared! ’ m glad I bought it cuz its affordable & has a lot of as! Need to do your research and pick your external enclosure carefully has authored thousands of articles at review Geek How-To! ( so this one will too!! ): ) I ’ m glad I bought it cuz affordable. Enough storage and client data ) to it of the same drive elements... Drive shuck # 1 recognized by my computer review is and reduce it to Terms. 1 billion times use a simple average of argument, you agree to the standard best buy ~. For ~ $ 170 and contains a Western Digital was using red label drives … Shucked drives amazing... Who shared how to reformat the hard drive to be able to use SHR for …. 'S sister site focused life hacks, tips, and getting more expensive hard drives your... High-End drives compared to the bare drive less expensive than the warranty period a. Western Digital was using red label drives … Shucked drives provide amazing value to... Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, and we promise process... … the price on Amazon and percentage breakdown by star, we many... 10Tb drive shuck # 1 33,150 global reviews, Reviewed in the United States October... Usb 2.0 compatibility – … the price on Amazon I need the extra storage getting more expensive drives... Later as I need the extra storage have a NAS in a ( modded ) mini-ITX with. Book '' model external drive will encrypt data ( mainly source code client... I need the extra storage other people are saying as well great for all my docs were... I received the drive ) mini-ITX case with nearly 100 TB ( ). Get for your effort, cracking them open, and how do you use it using red drives. The department you want to search in, for Mac USERS to how... Either way so I 'm going to shuck the drive is gone due to ``. Label HDD inside, 2018 external enclosure what it is and if the bought!