Solar Bear

I guarantee you the time spent swapping AAs every few days will far outweigh the time you spend using a screw driver to replace this battery at the frequency it requires.

Yeah, but the AAs will still be around in 10 years. Until we standardize internal power cells and legally mandate companies use them, I don’t really care how user-serviceable it is, by the time it actually needs a swap most companies are done selling it anyways and just want you to buy the next thing instead. At best you can get a shady third-party knockoff. Valve is slightly better in this regard, but I don’t expect them to still sell batteries 10-15 years from now.

I think most people just use “user-serviceable” as a cope and never actually intend to service it, it just makes them feel better to think they can. They just throw it away and get a shiny new thing when it becomes slightly inconvenient.

I’ve been able to order replacement parts directly from them in the past. Would they not sell you a replacement battery? Is the Pro 3 less repairable?

I can get rechargeable AAs in packs of 4 just around the corner from my house and therefore always have a few spares on hand instead of special ordering a unique battery that only works in a single device on the planet and only is available for purchase as long as they allow it. But I guess we can just throw it away in a few years instead and buy whatever new product they want to sell, as long as it comes with a charging cradle of course.

This is a strange argument to me. I just don’t get it.

We have a universal, standardized, cheap power cell. To this day you can use the same type of power cell in any low power device since it was standardized, going all the way back to things made in 1947. We then made it reusable for hundreds or even thousands of uses a piece, and they still only cost a few bucks.

We then replaced it with millions of different single-purpose batteries that are only compatible with one thing each.

People keep trying to gaslight me into thinking this is somehow better.

but there’s still going to be a percentage of people who just use disposables.

Make them illegal, and I’m not kidding.

It’s definitely dried up a fair bit over the last couple of years. In January 2025 I got some recertified 12TB Ironwolfs for $140 each from GoHardDrive, and that was already a fair bit over what they historically had been. Same drives are now $200 on GoHardDrive, and $220 on Amazon. You can just get them new $250, so at that point I barely think it’s worth it to get recertified unless you’re really stretching a budget. I’m sure the businesses are very happy with the demand they got now, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that LTT and other Youtubers covering these sites really drove up demand and prices.

Also, the smaller drives are a lot harder to find recertified these days since enterprise users will usually go for much larger capacities, so yeah, for 4TB you’ll probably have to go for new. You could also just get a larger drive and only use 4TB of it, assuming this is going into some kind of array. Upgrade the other one at a later date, then just expand your pool!