After a lot of deliberation I finally decided to shuck and got 2 8tb WD elements from Amazon and 2 8tb WD easystore from Best Buy. Shucking was extremely easy.

After a lot of deliberation I finally decided to shuck and got 2 8tb WD elements from Amazon and 2 8tb WD easystore from Best Buy. Shucking was extremely easy. They all had the same WD white drive inside. However, the difference was not in just branding which to me was surprising. In Elements the drive is held by rubber brackets which won’t fit in non-WD drives, but Easystore is using rubberized screws, which allowed me to use the case with older Seagates. They do run hot in the external case. I was trying to run badblocks and when the temp became about 60C, I decided to run an external fan. I wonder how long do these drives last in these external cases.. In my NAS with fans, the highest it got was 49C