3 ms·

Why is that external drives are often cheaper than internal?

by crummy 7y ago

gh123man 7y ago
I have thought about this as well. I would love someone more knowledgable to chime in - but if I had to guess it is that consumer hard drive sales have been declining a lot in recent years. Desktops are a thing of the past for your average PC user, and as a result hardware/storage upgrades. Laptops, mobile devices, and cloud storage is where it's at. No one is buying hard drives anymore except large enterprises. In order to appeal to the consumer market HDD manufacturers need a value prop to compete with cloud storage. So discounting bulk storage is the play. I am guessing that they are selling "white label" enclosed drives at a lower margin than the enterprise counterparts but still netting more in the long run.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  When I shuck drives like these, I frequently find the higher quality models of drives in there. However, I have heard that they bin their drives and the drives that don't pass muster for enterprise end up getting used in these external drives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning
climb_stealth 7y ago
I wonder if they are lesser quality or worse specs. External hard drives often don't even show the performance characteristics other than capacity on the boxes. This is different for internal drives from what I recall.
- MacsHeadroom 7y ago
  It's actually the opposite. External hard drives are frequently made from over production of enterprise grade hard disks. [1] Manufacturers would rather over produce high quality drives than risk not being able to fulfill orders. Eventually the surplus gets put in an external housing and rebranded for consumer use. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/7fx0i0/wd_easystore_8tb_compendium/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/7fx0i0/wd_easy...
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    I do a lot of shucking of external hard drives and I have never come across a 7200rpm drive. They are always 5400. But they are sometimes the higher quality drives in that speed range.

Why is that external drives are often cheaper than internal?

by crummy 7y ago

Why is that external drives are often cheaper than internal?

I have thought about this as well. I would love someone more knowledgable to chime in - but if I had to guess it is that consumer hard drive sales have been declining a lot in recent years. Desktops are a thing of the past for your average PC user, and as a result hardware/storage upgrades. Laptops, mobile devices, and cloud storage is where it's at. No one is buying hard drives anymore except large enterprises. In order to appeal to the consumer market HDD manufacturers need a value prop to compete with cloud storage. So discounting bulk storage is the play. I am guessing that they are selling "white label" enclosed drives at a lower margin than the enterprise counterparts but still netting more in the long run.

jjeaff 7y ago
When I shuck drives like these, I frequently find the higher quality models of drives in there. However, I have heard that they bin their drives and the drives that don't pass muster for enterprise end up getting used in these external drives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_binning

climb_stealth 7y ago

I wonder if they are lesser quality or worse specs. External hard drives often don't even show the performance characteristics other than capacity on the boxes. This is different for internal drives from what I recall.

MacsHeadroom 7y ago
It's actually the opposite. External hard drives are frequently made from over production of enterprise grade hard disks. [1] Manufacturers would rather over produce high quality drives than risk not being able to fulfill orders. Eventually the surplus gets put in an external housing and rebranded for consumer use. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/7fx0i0/wd_easystore_8tb_compendium/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/7fx0i0/wd_easy...
- jjeaff 7y ago
  I do a lot of shucking of external hard drives and I have never come across a 7200rpm drive. They are always 5400. But they are sometimes the higher quality drives in that speed range.