UK data hoarder flies to America to buy hard drives, saves $2,000

[Shawn Knight]

Dedication: A UK-based storage enthusiast recently ran the numbers and concluded that it would be cheaper to travel to the US to buy hard drives rather than to purchase them locally. So in early 2026, that's exactly what the Reddit user did. The plan worked, and the buyer ultimately came out ahead – although, in hindsight, purchasing fewer drives would have made for a more pleasant experience.

In sharing the story, Redditor cgtechuk said he was running out of space after upgrading to four 16TB drives purchased from Amazon UK in 2020. Unfortunately, the 28TB replacement drives he had been eyeing were skyrocketing in price locally. Having previously purchased hardware in the US before, he decided to check and found that it'd be cheaper to book a short trip to New York, buy the drives while in town, and fly back with them.

The data hoarder ended up ordering five drives from Best Buy and five from B&H Photo in hopes of avoiding cancellations by getting them all from the same place. Checkout at B&H was a breeze but Best Buy didn't take international cards, so he ended up having to use an Amex card with fees.

With the drives purchased, the next order of business was to book the trip. He used points for the flight and hotel, saving even more money. Once in town and the drives were secured, the user tested them in his hotel room using a variety of tools to ensure they were fully functional and genuine after reading horror stories online.

The drives ended up costing the buyer around £300 each, which included a hefty import tax of 20 percent. For comparison, the same drives sell for £568 on Amazon UK. All said and done, he saved a little over $2,000. In hindsight, he said he probably should have went with two fewer drives as fitting them into his carry-on luggage was a real struggle.

It all worked out in the end, however, and the drives are happily running in his NAS setup as we speak.

Permalink to story:

UK data hoarder flies to America to buy hard drives, saves $2,000

 

[yRaz]

What a world we are living in. I stopped trying to make sense of things years ago

 

[wiyosaya]

Just to save a few pounds. Wow! This guy should seek counseling, IMO.

 

[Beerfloat]

It's kind of pathetic. Save some dignity, effort, and inconvenience to your fellow travelers and just get it shipped out to you.

 

[Burty117]

Just to save a few pounds. Wow! This guy should seek counseling, IMO.

Folks in the UK are paid less than the US, Average US income is $63,795 (£47,216) while average income in the UK is £39,039, $2000 (£1,480) is a substantial savings when put into that perspective.

It is pretty far to go for some cheaper drives though, personally, I'd just wait it out or you know, delete some stuff.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Wow, didnt know there were so many wealthy people on Techspot. Y'all should just throw him the $2000 since its just "a few bucks" so he could just order them.

 

[kingmustard]

Definitely a pirate

 

[yRaz]

Folks in the UK are paid less than the US, Average US income is $63,795 (£47,216) while average income in the UK is £39,039, $2000 (£1,480) is a substantial savings when put into that perspective.

It is pretty far to go for some cheaper drives though, personally, I'd just wait it out or you know, delete some stuff.

The people across the pond also get services that we have to pay out of pocket for. We might make more on paper, but I'm also paying $20k/yr for health insurance

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The people across the pond also get services that we have to pay out of pocket for. We might make more on paper, but I'm also paying $20k/yr for health insurance

Then you need a better employer. That's expensive even for Obamacare plans.

Most corporate health plans have OOP expense limits of between $5-7500 per year, according to our healthcare insurance rep. And even including that numbers, Americans STILL have more purchasing power then the British.

The British economy is absolutely horrible. Mississippi is wealthier. Their economy never recovered from 2008.

Oh yeah, they also pay way more for other things. Food, fuel, energy, all these are significantly more expensive in the UK then in the USA. And electronics in general, those are very pricy overseas.

 

[dangh]

Then you need a better employer. That's expensive even for Obamacare plans.

Most corporate health plans have OOP expense limits of between $5-7500 per year, according to our healthcare insurance rep. And even including that numbers, Americans STILL have more purchasing power then the British.

So in order to actually be healthy you have to work in a corpo, preferably big one, and I will be still screwed for all my prescriptions and bills anyway? And if it happens you don't work a white collar job you simply die, not much corporations for clerks...
Or I can live in a normal country and shop overseas it is a quite simple choice. Life expectancy is 3 years less in US than in UK...

 

[Burty117]

The people across the pond also get services that we have to pay out of pocket for. We might make more on paper, but I'm also paying $20k/yr for health insurance

They aren't free, we're taxed far more heavily to get those services, but generally speaking, American's have more purchasing power than the British.

There's alot I could say on the subject, the British elites refuse to self-reflect, we aren't some giant empire anymore, just a silly little island where all the land and infrustructure is owned by other countries.

We're also experiencing "the finance curse", our whole economy revolves around financial services, when you get into the details, it's doing some serious damage that no politican wants to deal with.

But the TL;DR is, our Government has failed the country near continuously since the 70's.

 

[GeoffreyA]

I think it's a fantastic tech story. May thy bytes live long and prosper, sir!

 

[Theinsanegamer]

So in order to actually be healthy you have to work in a corpo, preferably big one, and I will be still screwed for all my prescriptions and bills anyway? And if it happens you don't work a white collar job you simply die, not much corporations for clerks...
Or I can live in a normal country and shop overseas it is a quite simple choice. Life expectancy is 3 years less in US than in UK...

No, yo do not. Obamacare plans are not usually that expensive either. Oh yeah, and all the poor who dont have jobs get their healthcare for free anyway.

But I'm pretty sure you knew that from what I wrote. Yes, the healthcare system needs fixing, no, it is not a death sentence, the fact that 340+ million people live here should clue you into that. The American is fat and medicated to keep them alive, that wouldnt be possible if nobody can afford care.

 

[yRaz]

Then you need a better employer. That's expensive even for Obamacare plans.

Most corporate health plans have OOP expense limits of between $5-7500 per year, according to our healthcare insurance rep. And even including that numbers, Americans STILL have more purchasing power then the British.

The British economy is absolutely horrible. Mississippi is wealthier. Their economy never recovered from 2008.

Oh yeah, they also pay way more for other things. Food, fuel, energy, all these are significantly more expensive in the UK then in the USA. And electronics in general, those are very pricy overseas.

The fact that I can pay 20 a year for my wife and daughters insurance speaks volumes about how good of a job I have. I also never see the money, it's part of my compensation, but I still see the bills and what the company is paying on my behalf. Whether I see the money or not is irrelevant, I'm still paying 20 a year for healthcare.

 

[Kelly Kufeldt]

"The drives ended up costing the buyer around £300 each, which included a hefty import tax of 20 percent."

If he is buying them in the U.S., why is he paying an import tax.

 

[VitalyT]

That's nothing. I can take a flight from Ireland to Berlin for just 100 euro, and buy there a veriety of goods that sell in Ireland for 3 times the price. That's your money saving 101, and the difference between a civilized market and an idi0tic rip-off market.

 

[unoficialoficial]

Folks in the UK are paid less than the US, Average US income is $63,795 (£47,216) while average income in the UK is £39,039, $2000 (£1,480) is a substantial savings when put into that perspective.

It is pretty far to go for some cheaper drives though, personally, I'd just wait it out or you know, delete some stuff.

Last week, I was trying to compile the new version of llama.cpp, so I had to delete the folder of the old one. I chose from the task bar the already open command prompt console window and entered the command `del l*`, but I had picked the wrong one and instead entered the command inside the AI models folder. As a result, I accidentally deleted all llama models, and suddenly, the drive had 1 TB more free space. I will miss them, but 1 TB is 1 TB.

 

[Aus spot]

"The drives ended up costing the buyer around £300 each, which included a hefty import tax of 20 percent."

If he is buying them in the U.S., why is he paying an import tax.

When you buy something and bring it into another country there is often an import duty. The tax has nothing to do with the US

 

[toooooot]

I do not trust those consumer drives in enclosures. In the past, those died on me much sooner than enterprise drives which I still use today. I suspect they put the cheapest drives to attract people who do not know the difference

 

[Axeia]

Just to save a few pounds. Wow! This guy should seek counseling, IMO.

"he saved a little over $2,000"
That's not a few, that's over £1.483.

It's kind of pathetic. Save some dignity, effort, and inconvenience to your fellow travelers and just get it shipped out to you.

Inconveniencing fellow travelers? How - no different from any other person traveling is it?
Effort? If he did this in one or two days and saved himself $2000 ehhh worth the effort I'd say.
Dignity? I don't see him losing any.
Shipping? You'd be surprised what you get charged for that and it's unlikely you can find a store that offers it in the first place. You'd likely have to use a third party proxy service (not without risk), you'd also have to pay import taxes and the fees you get charged for that. You wouldn't be able to test anything before receiving it and if you had to send it back to the US we're talking about A LOT of extra costs.
If I see how banged up my boxes get from international postage I'd have little faith in all disks arriving in working order.

--

As for people comparing wages. It's an apples to oranges comparison, yes people in the US tend to earn more - there's also more than not that work over 40 hours a week regularly. A rarity in the UK (and most of Europe), sure there's sectors that some periods (e.g. farming harvest season) people will work silly hours but it's not part of the culture for everyone. You also tend to be better off when you're 'poor' in the UK compared to the US, you can still eat healthy, you'll never worry about a medical bill.
Part of the less hours worked is mandated - regulations on companies are stricter for not letting people work insane amounts of hours. The number of vacation days is much higher and there's no such thing as a maximum amount of sick leave. Part of it is choice, many would rather work 32 hours and have less to spend then having to put in 40 hours a week.

 

[Beerfloat]

Inconveniencing fellow travelers? How - no different from any other person traveling is it?

It mentions he had difficulty fitting it into his carry-on luggage. This'll be the guy who takes up half of the overhead bin.

Effort? If he did this in one or two days and saved himself $2000 ehhh worth the effort I'd say.

He sat through 2 transatlantic flights, US border patrol (somehow a worse experience than even Israel, these days), local travel and lodging, and he used up his air miles for this fun ride. He must be a frequent flyer to get that many miles so he could've likely applied them on another trip. It's not exactly 'free'.

Dignity? I don't see him losing any.

Well, you guys do you. By all means go sit in cattle class and then crow on Reddit about how your time has no value. I'll just wait for the door knock from the Fedex guy.

 

[Axeia]

It mentions he had difficulty fitting it into his carry-on luggage. This'll be the guy who takes up half of the overhead bin.

Carry-on has a size limit. Afaik they simply don't let you on if you exceed it so I guess he just had trouble stuffing it in (or ended up wearing multiple layer of clothes to make room? I've done that before).

He sat through 2 transatlantic flights, US border patrol (somehow a worse experience than even Israel, these days), local travel and lodging, and he used up his air miles for this fun ride. He must be a frequent flyer to get that many miles so he could've likely applied them on another trip. It's not exactly 'free'.

That did make me raise an eyebrow as that's a weird to negate costs, but I guess he didn't have any other purpose to spend them on and that it was likely the initial light bulb moment behind this whole idea. Border patrol seems rather random, I guess they don't give you much trouble if you fly that frequently and are there for a short stay.

Well, you guys do you. By all means go sit in cattle class and then crow on Reddit about how your time has no value. I'll just wait for the door knock from the Fedex guy.

I'll happily sleep through most flights with some noise canceling earphones in. My time has value, but $2000 saved has value too - $2000 of it exactly. Sounds like this took him 2 days max? $1000 a day sounds like pretty good value to me.