I'm planning on using it as an external drive for a few months. I plan on shucking it later when I get around to building my NAS in a few months. So I'm wondering which would be better for that. I'm located in Canada so the prices are all in $CAD.
The 14tb I found for $239.99 at bestbuy and the 18tb is $334.99 at Newegg/Western Digital. Price per TB is $17.14/TB and $18.61/TB respectively.
The seagate is confirmed to have an Exos drive in it, newer production dates past about 09/23 are all getting st14000nm0121 mach2 drives (2 actuator heads, 2 platters). I got one and after tests (put a fan on it while in enclosure, runs up to 60c otherwise) shucked it. I can't comment on the noise while it's sitting in the array with the others, but I can tell you that it does seem to run a couple degrees warmer than the last seagate I shucked (an Ironwolf pro).
The WD will probably produce a white label ultrastar. Nothing wrong with them, just not as good of a price/deal. Also consider return policies: bestbuy is easy if it fails the initial tests, you take it back and swap for a new one. Newegg you need to do rma/return shipping, it's a hassle. WD direct might cover return cost, but it's still shipping downtime.
Did you test the performance of the drive? I'm getting 300MB/s in crystal disk with it still in the enclosure. So I'm wondering if I'm being limited by it.
The seagate is confirmed to have an Exos drive in it, newer production dates past about 09/23 are all getting st14000nm0121 mach2 drives (2 actuator heads, 2 platters).
Yeah but that's Amazon.com and I'm in Canada. After customs and shipping that ends up being around $370 in CAD which is higher than what websites are offering over here.