I learned to wait awhile after reading from or writing to it. It’s usually a related app that hasn’t fully shut down to “release” the drive or some buffering.

I agree, it’s a pita to have to go through that stupid eject business but I learned quite awhile back with trashed flash drive information when I’d pull out before doing the Windows ritual.

Who unplugs external devices without unmounting them? Computer 101.

Agree. Plus many players can’t play H265.

I’d go for the 14TB vs the 18TB used. One can only guess how many hours are on a used drives.

Qobuz. You can buy music without having a subscription.

Seagate 14TB external hard drive at Costco $149.99

https://www.costco.com/seagate-14tb-expansion-desktop-hard-drive.product.4000203297.html

Will this work?

https://ibb.co/qkKz1yB

Prices are often inflated before black friday and “discounted” on or close to good friday to look like a great deal.

I must be the luckiest guy on the planet because of the 12 external drives I have, the earliest being from 2002, the latest 2019 (WD, Toshiba & Seagate) have not had a single failure. They’re used for plex, archiving music & movies. I perform my own crude manual “raid” by storing each new file in 2 separate HDs as I get it. I fully understand drives do eventually fail, so I’m somewhat covered with doubling up my files.