East Digital - Price Monitor / History Google Sheet

Moodkiller on 09/01/2025 - 21:52
Last edited 02/02/2025 - 15:15

Hey Cheapies,

This is for all the DataHoarders and "lowest price per TB" HDD hunters. I've made a Google Sheet to parse the 3 main HDD categories on East Digitals website, namely:

  1. New HDDs
  2. Factory Recertified HDDs
  3. Pulled HDDs
Features:
  • Tables can be sorted and filtered by Date, Drive Size, Price Per TB, Price, Sale Price, Stock Status and Sale Status
  • Pivot Table per category for consolidated stats per unique product
  • Script is adaptable to any other similar Shopify website (see source code linked below)
  • Added bonus, even though the sale prices are hidden on the website, it is still in the page source code, the script will parse for this info as well, so you can see the last sale price
  • Products are hyperlinked with previews (no affiliate links)
  • HDD Lookup table - enter your desired size and it will spit out the lowest price, date and link to the relative cell
  • Pagination handling - script will go through as many pages of listings as there are in each category
Things to Note:
  1. Script automatically runs once a day (7pm-8pm each day)
  2. Most cells are locked except for the Drive Lookup section and the Pivot tables.
TODO (i.e if someone smarter than me can help, that would be awesome):

* Pull stock status (in or out of stock) | Github PR
* Column / Cell formatting if a drive is on sale | Github PR
* Obtain NZD from website instead of calculating it (room for error) | Github PR

Check your drives

TLDR from @c64:

old used seagate exos drives sold as new

get real "power on hours" for seagate exos drives (only, not WD) using:

"smartctl -l farm $dev" instead of "smartctl -A $dev"

Original post from ozbargain: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/891267?utm_source=searchal…

FARM checker tool: https://github.com/gamestailer94/farm-check?tab=readme-ov-fi…

Background: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Fraud-with-Seagate-hard-disks-D…

Feedback welcomed, feel free to make a copy and use as you wish.

East Digital Price Monitor Googlesheet | Source Code

General Discussion

Related Stores

east-digital.myshopify.com
east-digital.myshopify.com

Comments

  • Alan6984 on 10/01/2025 - 10:44
    +2

    Great work MoodKiller!

    • Moodkiller on 12/01/2025 - 14:02

      Many thanks Alan, appreciate the kind words.

  • Huntakillaz on 10/01/2025 - 13:32
    +1

    I also use this,
    https://diskprices.com/?locale=au&condition=new&capacity=14-…

    Can you add historical low?

    • Alan6984 on 10/01/2025 - 14:59

      Nice find :-)

    • Moodkiller on 10/01/2025 - 23:26

      Nice, forgot about that site. Were you thinking a dedicated sheet of historical lows for each product?

      • Huntakillaz on 11/01/2025 - 03:24

        You could do that to track it and then if the product matches on the other sheets it displays it on those.

        Gives people a decent reference as to how low the price for the drive could go

        • Moodkiller on 12/01/2025 - 14:01

          Will see what I can do - had a play around last night, just need to grab the historical date and it should be good to go

  • Grandma on 10/01/2025 - 15:02

    Being a cynic, but does anyone else get a bit hesitant when the website is a 'myshopify.com'

    • Huntakillaz on 10/01/2025 - 15:09
      +1

      Most smaller businesses and solo business use such website design + eCommerce platforms, the other popular one being squarepace
      they don't have the money to fork out for custom stuff

      • Grandma on 10/01/2025 - 15:38

        it makes sense, but I guess it's also a sign of the times

        • Alan6984 on 11/01/2025 - 13:06

          It does indicate an almost total lack of any technical understanding to use the 'myshopify.com' subdomain - not a good look.

    • kfr23 on 10/01/2025 - 15:33
      +1

      They sell on eBay as well, the Shopify is so they can avoid the eBay fees so it's cheaper. They put no effort into branding though lol

    • Everettpsycho on 10/01/2025 - 18:34

      More and more companies are leaning towards off the shelf websites like these theu jist hide the domain, why pay a developer agency to come up with custom code you cant maintain when you can do it yourself and keep everything internal.

    • 1ys23 on 11/01/2025 - 00:45
      +1

      I've bought from him once in November last year it is legit and going well still :D

  • 1ys23 on 10/01/2025 - 16:47
    +2

    Great work actually really helpful 😄 cheers 🎉

    • Moodkiller on 10/01/2025 - 23:27

      Many thanks!!! I am happy to hear and you are welcome.

  • akrotohur on 12/01/2025 - 14:44
    +1

    Came in to "upvote", thanks OP.

    • Moodkiller on 12/01/2025 - 17:11
      +1

      Here, take mine :D. Also thank you!

  • ace310 on 12/01/2025 - 17:23
    +1

    Nice one.

  • Moodkiller on 13/01/2025 - 22:40
    +3

    Quick update: Script / Sheet is now up to v1.5. Many thanks to the 2 Cheapies so far that have contributed via PR's to get the TODO's in place. I really do appreciate the assistance and contribution. Thank you!

    Current list of features since original post:

    • Prices now match the ED site exactly. Room for error removed.
    • Added "On Sale" and "Stock Status" columns. These can be used for filtering and historical tracking.
    • Tables are now sorted by newest to oldest to save scrolling as they get longer.
    • Various bug fixes.

    Change log from v1.0 to v1.5

    • Alan6984 on 13/01/2025 - 22:41
      +2

      HT to you MoodKiller (and those that have assisted).

  • chunder on 15/01/2025 - 15:10
    +1

    This is great. I've given the repo a watch to potentially contribute in future if possible.

    Anyone have suggestions for some 3.5" HDD enclosures?

    • Moodkiller on 15/01/2025 - 16:54
      +1

      Nice, thank you! Will come up with some other ideas (the historical lows are still a WIP, I cant quite get the formula to link back to correct cell

      Not too sure on 3.5" enclosure suggestions BUT I have 2 left over Seagate 3.5" enclosures from drives I shucked if you would like? Happy to take a "donation" towards them or can do a TradeMe listing if would prefer. Note: they do have the USA power adapter pins, but it does support 220v

      Otherwise a small NAS? Feel free to DM.

      • chunder on 15/01/2025 - 23:00
        +1

        the USA power adapter pins

        Ah yeah this is what I was trying to avoid ha. I'll keep it in mind, but may just end up getting the pbtech $36 one if I can't find a spare case at the parents house

  • Moodkiller on 31/01/2025 - 17:52
    +1

    Interesting post from ozbargain: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/891267?utm_source=searchal…

    FARM checker tool: https://github.com/gamestailer94/farm-check?tab=readme-ov-fi…

    Background: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Fraud-with-Seagate-hard-disks-D…

    TLDR from @c64:

    old used seagate exos drives sold as new

    get real "power on hours" for seagate exos drives (only, not WD) using:

    "smartctl -l farm $dev" instead of "smartctl -A $dev"

    • Everettpsycho on 31/01/2025 - 22:59
      +1

      Sods law k get my first drives yesterday and this comes out.

      Just checked them and luckily both 4Tb drives are 0 hours so actually new, so I'm happy with them at $120 a pop.

      For anyone checking on windows make sure you run command prompt at admin, confused me for a bit bit being able to check with smart tools but reopening using run as admin solved it.

    • Nil Einne on 01/03/2025 - 23:31

      Was making a forum thread when found it had already been discussed here. I'll cut most of it but leave this:

      A word of caution, while checking FARM vs SMART seems to work for now, I personally have doubts that the FARM cannot also be manipulated. While I haven't investigated, my guess it it can be and either no one has figured out how to yet, or more likely most did not bother as people have tended to just check SMART. I mean it's possible whoever is doing this didn't even know about Seagate's FARM. Now that this has blown up, there's a fair chance there's going to be strong pressure on them if they're still doing this, to find a way to manipulate FARM too. Unfortunately as with all these sort of things, it's very difficult to be sure you're not receiving something dodgy when the supply chain isn't entirely trustworthy.

      Likewise if you think just buy WD and you don't have to worry, again fair chance this is happening just that no one has yet found a way to show evidence it has. I don't see a reason to doubt it would happen for WD too unless no one has yet figured out how to manipulate their SMART values which I think is far less likely than they have we just don't know. I did have a quick search and didn't find any mention of a FARM equivalent for WD.

      Slightly off topic but one thing that isn't clear to me, I've seen reports that it's happened in Australia. But looking at OzBargain I think this might just refer to the reports about East Digital HK rather than actual Australian retailers? Given that the supply chains in NZ and Australia are fairly related, if it has happened with Australian retailers/suppliers, it's quite likely it's also happened with Kiwi ones. In any case, considering it's affected I think some fairly major retailers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, I wouldn't be that surprised if it's happened here (and Australia) too, just no one who received one has discovered it yet.

      Also I've seen reports it's affected Amazon in Europe. But I think these are just third party sellers on Amazon? Or have there been reports of sold by Amazon drives affected too?

  • honza on 07/02/2025 - 20:31

    Got a pulled 16Tb WD ultrastar last month and a new 16TB Exos last year, everything running fine, a little noise but to be expected from drives of this type. I'll update if I have any issues in the future but for now I'm happy everything is still running well.

  • Alan6984 on 07/02/2025 - 23:42

    Hi honza,

    What does 'pulled' mean in this context? Not a term I am familiar with - does it mean used / second hand?

    Thanks,

    Alan.

    • spren on 09/02/2025 - 11:19

      yes

  • Everettpsycho on 10/02/2025 - 22:42

    Has anyone else noticed they barely have any availability at the moment?

    I've just messaged as one of my drive has failed in weeks of receiving it but seems like they don't have any new stock of anything between 2Tb and 14Tb.

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