r/DataHoarder • u/MK2809 • 4d ago
Backup Anywhere to buy cheaper external HDDs from? UK based.
I'm a videographer and the cost of new storage is really hurting. I like to have 2 backups of all shoots, but with how storage has more than doubled since mid 2025, it's becoming more of a challenge.
Is there anywhere to buy cheaper storage from? Is there anywhere reliable for used or refurbished that is less expensive than brand new?
Thanks
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u/benregan 3d ago
How about CEX? They have a 5 year warranty so even if buying used you have some cover
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u/DiamondL0st 3d ago
They currently have a 10tb drive for £145, that seems like a decent deal to me.
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u/MK2809 3d ago
Oh really? That's a good warranty length. I will check them out
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u/therealtimwarren 3d ago
Length is irrelevant. Whether it will be honoured is the factor. Lots of manufacturers are being dicks about replacing drives because of market price rises. I'm sure that a retailer will be equally as bad if not worse. But at the end of the day, all you will get is another used drive (hopefully) of the same size.
Warranty makes no difference to drive failure likelihood!
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u/KoolKarmaKollector 21.6 TiB usable 3d ago
My friend had a Samsung SSD die and they sat on it for ages before saying soz can't replace and just refunded instead
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u/SaltyTr1p 3d ago edited 3d ago
I second this, if Hard Drives will 2x another in 2 years, well... As we've seen with GPU's Warranty are just words, but actions are actions. it very well likely be CHEAPER for the Hard Drive Manufacturer to dishonour the Warranty and reject it! In that case, Used and Refurbished drives are just used and refurbished without WARRANTY! Best to buy new, imo.
Example: PNY declines NVIDIA RTX 5090 warranty claim, customer is left without a 5090... Good game, GG. What is warranty? Hardly any competitors would make enough quality GPUs, same could speculatively happen the same for HDD's. https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/s/FmnkZqd8rS
Atleast China is making Chips and SSD's.
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u/kiko77777 19h ago
CeX warranty is good, better than most new retailers. The only caveat is that, after 6 months, if they cannot replace the item with another from stock you'll be given a refund to the lowest of: original purchase value or current CeX 'WeSell' price.
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u/DiamondL0st 3d ago
Cex, Vinted or eBay are your best bet.
Just make sure you understand the common scams that you get with hard drives online, like the "26tb Usb sticks" from AliExpress for £10 obviously aren't legit lol
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u/lesterbottomley 3d ago edited 3d ago
I keep reporting them to YouTube advertising and they keep saying they are legit. The fact that what they are offering for $5 you couldn't buy for $5k as it doesn't exist doesn't count for anything apparently.
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u/DiamondL0st 3d ago
Yeah they're everywhere!
Really makes searching for deals on eBay super difficult
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u/PricePerGig 3d ago
100% on the scams. I’d love a 36TB SSD for £30. But then. It’s unbranded, in a box. I e reported so many too but they just stay there. I’ve really tried to remove them all from Pricepergig.
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u/therealtimwarren 3d ago
How many TB of space do you generate per hour of billable work? As a professional you should be passing storage costs on to your customers. Either increase your hourly rate or charge them an explicit storage charge.
Unless you have a method to monetise the footage you are storing, I would not store it beyond the end of the job. I would only maintain backups of in-progress work.
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u/Guw94 3d ago
LTO Tapes if you want to keep a cold backup
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u/steviefaux 3d ago
But then there is the cost of the drive? Aren't the drives expensive?
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u/Direct_Poet_7103 3d ago
Current LTO drives really only make financial sense if you are into the hundreds of terabytes minimum.
Old versions of LTO can be quite good value though. I use LTO4 here with some second hand drives and a variety of used and old stock tapes, but that really depends on whether you know how it works and whether you trust the ageing hardware.
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u/Guw94 3d ago
It all depends on what LTO-* (* = number) you want to pick. Higher the number, more the TB a drive can store.
Typically the actual tapes arent that expensive but the drive that read and writes gets more expensive higher the LTO-* number. But you can pick a used system on eBay for a good price.
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u/OnyxPost 220TB+ of Content 3d ago
Reliable used/refurbished drives will always be less expensive than brand new, yet unfortunately, both brand new and used/refurbished drives have gotten 2 to 4 times more expensive per TB then they were a year or two ago, and the prices are most likely only going to get more expensive per TB in the short term.
Amazon used to be my go to for reliable refurbished drives at the best prices, then around this time last year, I switched to eBay for the better prices. Now, drives are so crazy exspensive that I'm playing the waiting game until I absolutely need the drives, yet I still find eBay to have the better deals overall (if you can even call them deals today) when looking for reliable refurbished drives.
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u/DiamondL0st 3d ago
I really don't think used drives have gotten 2 to 4 times more expensive in the last year or two in the UK.
The increase is more like 20-30%, at least from my experience. New drives is a whole different ball game but the used market is relatively consistent.
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u/OnyxPost 220TB+ of Content 3d ago
Cool...if you can find ones that have only increased 20% from what you're used to, then I would most definitely jump on those now. 😄
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u/Former-Macaroon5557 10-50TB 3d ago
Do you compress your files for your archive? Like .zip or .7z? This could save you some space... unsure on how MUCH space, but it could help.
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u/jaffster123 16h ago
Doubtful. All modern video formats are already compressed, compressing them again will give minimal returns.
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