The 8TB are back in stock at the Western Digital Store and the 6, 10 and 12TB are on sale. While the 8TB is not on sale, it has been going out of stock regularly on their store. If you are able to take advantage of the Youth Program, you get 15% off making them. The 15% off is the only reason I would choose to buy directly from WD rather than a normal retailer. Don’t forget to take advantage of a cashback website like Rakuten (formerly ebates) which is offering 5% cashback. I ordered 2 more 8TB yesterday and will get $12 cashback from Rakuten which helps offset most of the tax.
Here’s a breakdown of the current discounts for 6TB-12TB (pretax)
Current Price / Youth Discount Price
6TB - $119 / $102
8TB - $144 / $124
10TB - $189 / $162
12TB - $219 / $187
Western Digital Store
Youth Discount Program
https://www.youthdiscount.com/partners/western-digital-gb
I have bought 2 of the 8TB from them so far and both have been the white label WD80EMAZ which smartmontools identifies as a 5400 HGST Ultrastar He10 (Helium drive).
Model family:WDC HGST Ultrastar He10
Device model:WDC WD80EMAZ-00WJTA0
Firmware version:83.H0A83
User capacity:8,001,563,222,016 bytes [8.00 TB]
Sector sizes:512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation rate:5400 rpm