HGST Enterprise He8 HDD Found in Early Retail 8TB WD My Book?

[Elixer]

Ok, so what we have figured out so far is early WD My Book 8TB models may have gone out with relabeled HGST He8’s. We say early because it only makes sense for WD to shift over to actual Reds in the future, as My Books are not marketed as performance units and would generally only be performance-rated with 5400 RPM drives. Bear in mind that all of the above would not necessarily apply to other WD external units. It is very unlikely that they would have put white label drives in any of their external units that have user-replaceable drives (like the My Book Mirror, for example), as those are typically branded as coming equipped with WD Red units installed.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Storage/HGST-Enterprise-He8-HDD-Found-Early-Retail-8TB-WD-My-Book

If all these are He8's, then, nice deal!

For what it is worth, the last 'My book' 5TB one I got was a blue (green) label, not even a red.

 

[Hugo Drax]

Makes sense, I was wondering which drives they are sticking in those 8gb mybooks when the reds were not yet out.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Hey guys,

Regarding this: In general, any HGST or WD products may include components, technologies or systems from the combined company. Specific to the 8 TB WD Red and WD Purple drives announced on Mar. 1, these include components, technologies, and systems that are produced by the combined company and are also used in HGST-branded drives. They have been engineered for WD Red/WD Purple applications.

WD Red drives are generally designed to be used in NAS devices and RAID arrays so there isn't really a need for them for the single-drive WD My Book devices.

Captain_WD.

 

[Bryf50]

Before you run out and buy one it seems that newer version are using a WD80EZZX drive. This is still based on the HGST Helium but only running at 5400rpm. So not quite as hot of a deal. Your best bet would probably be to got to a B&M store and hope they have some older stock on the shelves.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

Before you run out and buy one it seems that newer version are using a WD80EZZX drive. This is still based on the HGST Helium but only running at 5400rpm. So not quite as hot of a deal. Your best bet would probably be to got to a B&M store and hope they have some older stock on the shelves.

Exactly what I was thinking. Maybe hit up a Best Buy, grab one, open it in the car and get a second if it's the HUH728080ALE601.

Doesn't seem like anybody could confirm if those drives had TLER disabled or not. Since they simply relabeled an HGST drive initially, it's hard to tell if they put a special firmware or not.

The other downside is there will be no warranty unless you can put it back into the myBook case and they accept it for warranty repair/replacement. The problem here is that the warranty would only be 2 years vs the 5 year on the retail HGST drives. Fortunately the label on the disk inside only says "Warranty void if sold as bare drive" but doesn't say it's void if you do precisely this.

 

[UfoKlLLerz]

i picked up one at bestbuy today, and it is indeed a 7200 he8 drive.
contemplating on where to pickup a 2nd one, my bestbuy had one.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

i picked up one at bestbuy today, and it is indeed a 7200 he8 drive.
contemplating on where to pickup a 2nd one, my bestbuy had one.

Any chance you're willing to check if it has TLER enabled? Some info about it here.

 

[UfoKlLLerz]

Any chance you're willing to check if it has TLER enabled? Some info about it here.

will check later tonight. picking up a 2nd one of these since i plan to run 2 with windows storage spaces pool in redundancy. Running a x99 mobo that is known to die early.
i'm just got 8x 6tb RE drives in my nas last month, so no point upgrading so fast.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Nice to see 8TB drives coming down in price like that. I don't care if they're 5400RPM, I'd actually prefer 5400RPM since I use them for storage and don't care about speed. It's going to be a while before I run out of space on my 4TB drives, but it's good to see there is a viable option for upgrade now.

 

[Elixer]

i picked up one at bestbuy today, and it is indeed a 7200 he8 drive.
contemplating on where to pickup a 2nd one, my bestbuy had one.

I was thinking about getting one as well, but, no store in 150 miles has one in stock.

 

[UfoKlLLerz]

local 24 hr bestbuy in nyc has 6 of these in the cabinet

interesting thing i noticed, they have some with DCM: HEBHMCK, which i believe might be newer drives

the one i have at home is GEBHMCK, and i hand picked a GEBHMCK to purchase. also hand picked one with a serial number close to mine which starts with 2EJL
will get to check speed later

DCM = Drive config matrix, which might mean something. might not.

This is the Drive Configuration Matrix string, which identifies the configuration of the drive, such as type of motor, number of platters, heads, and even the casing etc.

edit: 2nd drive is 7200rpm HUH728080ALE601

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

local 24 hr bestbuy in nyc has 6 of these in the cabinet

interesting thing i noticed, they have some with DCM: HEBHMCK, which i believe might be newer drives

the one i have at home is GEBHMCK, and i hand picked a GEBHMCK to purchase. also hand picked one with a serial number close to mine which starts with 2EJL
will get to check speed later

DCM = Drive config matrix, which might mean something. might not.


edit: 2nd drive is 7200rpm HUH728080ALE601

I went to my local best buy, and picked two using your guide. I got a 2EJK and a 2EJL, both GEBHMCK and they are the correct HUH728080ALE601 drives.

Got them put up in a RAID 1 on my main PC already. Woo, the space.

I ran the TLER check - they have TLER disabled. I attempted to enable it, but it did not persist after a reboot. Looks like they aren't really suitable for a RAID. I'm still using it in one but it's Intel onboard and not super critical.

 

[Topweasel]

Picked up a GBEHMCK from BB yesterday. Will be opening it up tonight to see if its an HGST. At 250 for 8TB of actual usable drive performance I am cool with it either way, but it will be that much better as a HGST He8.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Hey

Have in mind that opening a WD My Book voids its warranty and in case you'd like to exchange it for one reason or another you won't be able to.

Captain_WD.

 

[Elixer]

Hey

Have in mind that opening a WD My Book voids its warranty and in case you'd like to exchange it for one reason or another you won't be able to.

Captain_WD.

What is the logic behind that anyway? This seems very anti-consumer.
I can understand it for commercial use, but, I don't get the logic for consumer use.

If you open the external case, and use the drive internally, then why should that automatically kill your warranty?

On that front, why are external units cheaper than internal units now?
Think about that, the bare drive is more expensive that the drive + case + psu + controller board + cable + "fancy box".

 

[Topweasel]

Hey

Have in mind that opening a WD My Book voids its warranty and in case you'd like to exchange it for one reason or another you won't be able to.

Captain_WD.

Thanks for looking out, but to me I have had ok luck with WD, fantastic luck with Hitachi, and almost no luck with the mybooks. To me its worth it for the savings and the idea of freeing it from the my book enclosure, to lose the warranty.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Swapping drives on a single-bay WD DAS is not supported thus it shouldn't be opened by the users. If a user needs an internal drive they could simply opt for the bare drive instead of going for the whole enclosure.

As I am not part of the pricing/financial department I can't really comment on the prices of our products.

~snip~

I'm sorry to hear about the experience with the WD My Book drives. You can always opt for the WD Elements Desktop that don't feature Hardware Encryption in case the case itself fails and you need your data back, but they don't come in large capacities like the WD My Book series do. Of course you are free to open your drive but in expense of your warranty.

Captain_WD.

 

[Topweasel]

Swapping drives on a single-bay WD DAS is not supported thus it shouldn't be opened by the users. If a user needs an internal drive they could simply opt for the bare drive instead of going for the whole enclosure.

As I am not part of the pricing/financial department I can't really comment on the prices of our products.



I'm sorry to hear about the experience with the WD My Book drives. You can always opt for the WD Elements Desktop that don't feature Hardware Encryption in case the case itself fails and you need your data back, but they don't come in large capacities like the WD My Book series do. Of course you are free to open your drive but in expense of your warranty.

Captain_WD.

Well I don't have the greatest luck with and retail external drives from the big guys. Specially WD and Seagate, seem to use weak USB controllers always popping in and out and dying out during long transfers. I am more of an internal HDD type person, a 8TB 7200RPM He8 drive for $250 was worth taking a chance on. Considering my success with getting the drive in question, the lack of a warranty doesn't mean much when I got the drive for basically half off. On top of that every HGST and IBM drive before that I have gotten has been bullet proof (even my Deathstars worked great for me).

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

In that case, fully aware of the lack of warranty, you should be good to go, as long as there's a HGST drive there. 8TB WD Red drives use the same technology as the HGST drives so either way you should be good.

Captain_WD.

 

[Topweasel]

In that case, fully aware of the lack of warranty, you should be good to go, as long as there's a HGST drive there. 8TB WD Red drives use the same technology as the HGST drives so either way you should be good.

Captain_WD.

Checked the Model number and its the He8 HGST model #. Again cool with the lack of warranty. So much so that I already tossed the empty carcass that was the enclosure (not that I ever would have thought about popping it back in).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, I did the same thing with a Seagate (Samsung-branded external) 5TB HDD.

The factory enclosure it came in was worthless, disconnected all the time, wouldn't pass HDD tests - garbage.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

I hope the drive serves you well. Feel free to ask if there are any questions regarding the specific technology about He drives or if you encounter any problems.

Cheers!

Captain_WD.

 

[Elixer]

I hope the drive serves you well. Feel free to ask if there are any questions regarding the specific technology about He drives or if you encounter any problems.

Cheers!

Captain_WD.

Since you like answering questions, why the rename from RE to Gold now?
It is getting too hard to remember what color is for what.

 

[thesmokingman]

Thanks for looking out, but to me I have had ok luck with WD, fantastic luck with Hitachi, and almost no luck with the mybooks. To me its worth it for the savings and the idea of freeing it from the my book enclosure, to lose the warranty.

If you call in you can always argue that the mybook died and you needed to confirm the data is safe. If you sent it into warranty, you would lose the data as they do not warranty the data. This usually does the trick to warranty the actual drive. You need to make sure you are calling about the right ss# per mybook, don't want to get them mixed up or your cause gets thrown out the window.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Thanks guys for the tip. Just scored the last GEBHMCK at my local BB(The remaining 8TB was HEBHMCK which usually has the 5400rpm drive). Drive is labeled HUH728080ALE601.