So I recently thought to check out one of these drives as an office NAS backup device:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DNVC4S6/?tag=tonymacx86com-20
Checking the product I was very shocked to see the price tag however - only for $231!
It seems some of the HDDs today have now fallen to record lows.
I did not find the price you quote at that link. I saw much higher price.
I have 20 cents to offer on 3.5 in hard drives:
Searching for drives on Amazon is a little tricky because there are so many offerings at wildly different prices, from various vendors, slight model diffs, refurbs etc. So you need to pay close attention and have a baseline. I prefer the product to be fulfilled by Amazon or Newegg.
My baseline is in terms of 3.5in 8TB drives, which have had a decent track record of reliability, according to Backblaze reports, and are in the price/capacity sweetspot.
Specifically, I choose Seagate basic 8TB as a price reference.
18 mos ago, 8TB new major brand was $120 (US). Then as pandemic lockdowns sent PC sales to the moon, prices went up 50+ percent to $200!
(Oddly, at that time you could by a Seagate 8TB USB external drive for 10% less than bare drive, then tear off the enclosure and throw it away if you like; the enclosure is not designed for reuse and warranty goes out the window.)
Over last six months, prices have been falling since pandemic peak, to about $150 for 8TB.
Today, to me the sweet spot looks like 16TB for $300.
You can pay a lot more if you shop carelessly. Your market may vary.
IMO based on carefully reading backblaze reports and user reviews, Toshiba makes the most dependable 3.5 in drives. These can be found with price parity to Seagate/WD, and in my experience are best performance and most trouble-free/quiet etc. Note that this little more than my personal bias.
There's been slow-steady consolidation in manufacturing and the tech has become insanely complex (and well perfected) so no easy way to judge, but also less chance of crap. It's a golden age.
Stay away from refurbs/open-box, and drives with unconventional models that targeted OEM application. It can be hard to tell, so swim with the current. For example, If an offering has a small number of reviews, that means something weird.
I broke my own rule and bought used 4TB drive for $50 from what looked like a legit reseller on Amazon and been using it daily and it's fine. For a used drive, I run a GNU ddrescue (Linux or Macports) read pass over the whole raw device and if it comes up clean with high throughput, I say good to go.
hth
so that I can retire the now very old Dell tower and still have the educational and games available for future grandkid visits, although honestly I think they all have iPads!