EDIT: attached screencap of inline testing via Spearfoot's previously posted script. I had originally started SMART testing manually, but once I found the script, I aborted all the manually started tests (hence the notation of aborted test in #2 position for each disk) and ran the script, although I changed it to test blocks in groups of 256 instead of the default 64. At current %'s, one complete write test seems to finish in just under 24 hours.
Hey, just wanted to share my experience with y'all down here in Deep South Texas. I purchased one of these 8tb drives early in the week, and sure enough it was the Red WD80EFAX model which goes for $280 on it's own. I stuck it in a box and ran a few disk diags on it to make sure it was good. So I went to a different Best Buy today and they had 2 on the shelf. Grabbed them and asked cashier if she had any more in stock. She said 6 total. Ok, I bought them all and came home. I just shucked them to verify. All 6x are WD80EFAX Ladyboy Editions with 256mb cache. I didn't get any General Chow editions with 128mb cache. All were labelled as MGBJRCK on the underside of the box.
Manufacture dates are:
08 JUN 2017
08 JUN 2017
05 JUL 2017
05 JUL 2017
05 JUL 2017
05 JUL 2017
Quick disk benchmarks on Win7 using BurnInTest randam data + random seeking average current speeds were 172-196 MB/sec. So figure about 180 MB/sec average.
Next step is to find enough hardware to cobble together another box so I can boot them into FreeNAS and start running disk checks.
Total cost at the $179 retail price with tax came out to $1169.40 so each individual drive cost $194.90 with tax.
Amazon Prime currently has the same model drive at $198.99 so it would be 'free' shipping, but no guarantee I would get all Ladyboy editions. Some General Chow models might make it in there...
So.. while the 256mb cache won't really matter for a media NAS, it would be useful for the 7th unit that I have in my desktop to replace the aging 1tb Black drive in it. I'm upgrading from 6x 2TB Green drives (with LCC firmware mod) that didn't have TLER, so it's not a big deal. In large arrays, better to get cheaper disks than buy top quality units, at least for home use where budget tends to matter more.
Serial #s blacked out just in case...