Buying a portable hard drive - taobao?

[pprendeville]

Considering picking up one of these as my Chinese friend has loads of movies and I never brought my own with me when leaving Ireland. Wondering if someone could publish a list of online electrical retailers. Have only tried sunning and they are all a bit pricy on it for a half decent drive.

Looking to get something cheap (under the 400RMB mark if possible). Went to a big electrical city today in Shijiazhuang and they were around the 500RMB mark for a 500GB Seagate drive. Would it be worth using taobao and just making sure the ratings are high for seller?

[abcdefg]

I bought an external hard drive two or three months ago here in Kunming. 500 GB Western Digital for about 520 Yuan. They were willing to include a protective case for 530. I priced them in half a dozen places, and think it would have been difficult to get one for 400, but who knows. I'm not great at bargaining and never seem to get the absolute lowest possible price.

[chestnut818]

I suggest to use www.360buy.com..the products here are not sell buy individuals, also, it only take one day to deliver.

[liuzhou]

Checked prices locally today.

The going rate seems to be around ¥500 / 500Gb. I'd be wary of anything around ¥400.

[大肚男]

400 for 500GB sounds pretty good. I heard good things and bad things about taboo. I would buy from a trusted brick and mortar shop. You don't Want to go back home and discover that the hard drive its busted

[imron]

And/or you don't want to get back home and find your 500 GB drive is actually a 128 MB drive with the FAT table overwritten to make it pretend it's a 500 GB drive.

[pprendeville]

thanks guys. yes i believe 500RMB for 500GB is the going rate alright. was that a passport western digital hard drive you got. saw some poor reviews on amazon about them so i'm going to steer clear. i can't find any iomega drives in any of the sjops here or online. what's the chinese name for iomega?

imron: is there a way of checking at the store for this?

[imron]

Reputable stores won't try this sort of shenanigans. Random online stores, or some tiny stall in a big electronics mall may be a different story.

[abcdefg]

was that a passport western digital hard drive you got.

Yes. WD My Passport, Essential SE. Box says it was made in Malaysia. It is USB 3.0 compatible for faster transfer speeds.

imron: is there a way of checking at the store for this?

The seller plugged it into a computer for me and let me see the size of it (my computer; right click; properties.) I always do that in the store when buying a USB key.

[imron]

That's easy enough to fake if you want to. There are plenty of stories on the net about fake Chinese hard drives that report their size as one thing but actually are far less, and just keep copying over other files once the real limit is reached (I'd provide a link but am on mobile at the moment so will just defer to google).

[abcdefg]

There goes my "acid test." Guess I'll just have to rely on a fortune teller 算命 next time I go shopping for electronics.

[jbradfor]

The real acid test is to copy over data to the full capacity of the drive, read back the data, and confirm it's the same. Might be hard to do in a store, however.

[abcdefg]

Living in "The Land of Fakes" is challenging.