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.