hard drive prices.

How can a USB external hard drive be cheaper than the same capacity SATA internal hard drive by the same manufacture?
Sure, the USB drive may not be as fast as the internal one, but then there is the case and the PSU to put into the cost.

Demand. Internal drive demands are mostly SSDs now.

Drives differ greatly in price for the same capacity from the same manufacturer. It's all a matter of specifications. For example, a WD Blue 4GB will cost you about £90, whilst a WD Black 4GB is about £195.

Are you sure that the two drives you are comparing use the same base unit?

Are you sure you mean 4GB? If so you are paying way over the odds

I realise that different specs of drives are different prices, the Toshiba N300 drives I got for the Nas are more expensive than the normal Toshiba p300, even for the same capacity, but the inside the USB enclosure is the same drive that is sold as an internal drive, same specs everything, but the USB one is cheaper.
If people want a internal drive for their computer, then best to get an external one and rip the drive out of it.

My bad. I remember when 4GB cost a lot more than that.

Good theory, but the drive in the USB case doesn’t necessarily have sata connectors.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Good theory, but the drive in the USB case doesn’t necessarily have sata connectors.

Well the seagate one I looked at does, I had a look on you Tube to see if there was a video of one being taken apart, just for the fun of it. the drive is a standard Seagate drive, just connected to a circuit board to convert the Sata to a USB.

This is not for me, looking at a USB drive for someone else and thought maybe it would be cheaper to get an internal one and a separate case, no chance.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Good theory, but the drive in the USB case doesn’t necessarily have sata connectors.

Well the seagate one I looked at does, I had a look on you Tube to see if there was a video of one being taken apart, just for the fun of it. the drive is a standard Seagate drive, just connected to a circuit board to convert the Sata to a USB.

This is not for me, looking at a USB drive for someone else and thought maybe it would be cheaper to get an internal one and a separate case, no chance.

Fiver for a SATA to USB converter. Cases are overrated 🤣

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Fiver for a SATA to USB converter. Cases are overrated 🤣

I am thinking of getting something like that, but it will need a PSU with it, I have some old drives here, be nice to see what is on them, or i may just set up the old motherboard and boot to a linux distro and check them that way.

Bear in mind that if you break open an external drive to extract the disk you will have no warranty on that disk. It might be a false economy.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Bear in mind that if you break open an external drive to extract the disk you will have no warranty on that disk. It might be a false economy.

That is true, but it was an external we were looking for and just looked at internal, thinking it may be a cheaper way to go.
Ordered a seagate one from Argos, going to pick it up in a bit and then going to try and sort out a computer that have decided not to boot for some reason.
Silly person have not backed up their data, so that is why I have got him to get an external hard drive, not so sure if we really need a 6TB one, but there you go
There are two drives in the computer, so hopefully the data one is fine.
but then I have no idea what is wrong with the computer until I look at it, he showed me over discord of it just resetting as soon as it gets to the Windows boot. By all accounts, he updated to Windows 11 and this is what it left him with
It is not even his computer, it is his partners, she was not happy with him trying to update it to Windows 11.
I thought I was going to have a nice, relaxing Saturday before going back to work tomorrow after 4 days off.

i don't understand why people don't back up, drives are pretty cheap these days, certainly if it is a computer that you use for work.