thx for posting this. Personally I am a fan of Western Digital Black Label spinning drives. Say what you will! I have details, and basically they work for me. AFAIK in 2026 and back into 2025, there are very large, new high-spec Western Digital Black Label disks in the catalog.. that I just cannot order. It says "all orders are pre-allocated until further notice" or similar ? Meanwhile, the same disks I bought ten years ago, same size, spec, performance and rating, as also available and I can buy those.. for perhaps twenty percent more than I paid long ago. This is new to me, this situation where an ordinary civilian cannot purchase the large drives, exclusive to "select customers" with opaque wording and no end in sight. The happy escalator of increasing spec and similar consumer prices, has ended.

Why am I reading the very newest Backblaze drive report -- they fired the over-forty engineer who started this, apparently.. and I as a consumer, cannot buy the same drives that might be listed there -- have not looked yet. The entire situation is fundementally changed. Info welcome