Storage Pricing Context
Newegg has a rare deal on a high-capacity 16TB external Seagate drive, knocking $100 off the price to bring it down to $449.99. That comes out to around $0.02 per GB, which is surprisingly sensible given current high-capacity HDD market pricing.
The cheapest 16TB HDD available new is the IronWolf Pro at $599, which is on sale for 6% off. Previously, before HDD prices increased significantly, comparable high-capacity storage was available at lower price points, whereas current 16TB drives often reach around $700, with higher-end Exos drives exceeding $800.
Shuckability and Specifications
Users looking for internal storage can remove the enclosure and extract the drive, though doing so voids the warranty. Weighing the warranty risk is essential given current hardware costs.
The Seagate Expansion Desktop drive is a 16TB HDD connecting via USB 3.0. It comes formatted to ExFAT by default, allowing cross-platform compatibility out of the box.
Performance Expectations
As with many external enclosures, the exact internal drive varies. Seagate does not specify the internal drive speed, though many external HDDs operate at 5,400 RPM. User reports indicate both Barracuda and IronWolf Pro drives inside the Expansion Desktop enclosure.
Most 5,400 RPM drives deliver sustained sequential reads and writes around 100 MB/s. The USB 3.0 interface provides sufficient bandwidth for these speeds, making the drive suitable for long-term storage.
When installed internally, the drive can handle older games, though modern AAA titles typically require an SSD. Games featuring HDD fallbacks may still experience performance bottlenecks on slower 5,400 RPM mechanisms.
While shipped pre-formatted in ExFAT for broad platform support, users can reformat the drive to alternative file systems depending on their operating requirements.
Pricing Tier Comparisons
At $449, the 16TB capacity point represents the most cost-effective option in this lineup. The 12TB and 14TB versions are priced higher at $619.99 and $660 respectively, while the 26TB version lists at $1,179.99.
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