Buying a 5TB hard drive abroad, and having it posted to Thailand, what customs duty will I have to pay?

[MrMuddle]

Trying to work out the total cost, with drive price, signed postage costs and possible customs duty. Thanks for all replies.

[robblok]

I believe on IT stuff 10% + 7% vat over the drive and shipping. If you buy at amazon its all calculated for you.

[BritManToo]

Lazada isn't good enough?

3,350bht ......... 

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/wd-my-passport-5tb-red-usb-30-hdd-25-wdbpkj0050brd-wesn-internal-harddisk-harddrive-i627326845-s1198182447.html

 

I'm assuming you mean 5TB and not 5GB.

[MrMuddle]

Yes 5 Tb (oops)!
Too many fake products. I've got files I want to keep for a long time, I don't want to risk a drive failing after a few months. Once bitten, twice shy!

[johng]

Seagate and Western Digital hard drives are made in Thailand   you can buy them from a shop like JIB on Lazada cash on delivery, no fakes arrives in a couple of days  no worries about  customs or getting lost for months in the international mail system.

[clokwise]

Like as mentioned above, Lazada has all kinds of HD. For these sorts of things it often costs more to buy them abroad when you add up shipping plus duty plus tax. The courier often will add some fees on top too. Warranty and service issues may also arise. I've personally bought a number of HD from Lazada, none of them "fake". The only fakes I've encountered on Lazada are USB memory sticks. If you still have doubts, buy from a reputable vendor shop on Lazada like "JIB", or directly from JIB's website if you must (same price though).

 

Regardless, Lazada has a 100% refund no questions asked policy, so why you are complicating things for yourself?

[BritManToo]

7 minutes ago, MrMuddle said:

Yes 5 Tb (oops)!
Too many fake products. I've got files I want to keep for a long time, I don't want to risk a drive failing after a few months. Once bitten, twice shy!

Fulfilled by Lazada .................. can't go wrong.

[J Town]

I swear by Lazada. A vendor tried to rip me off for a motherboard and Lazada handled it. Slowly, to be sure, but once we ascertained the vendor was trying to do me dirt, I got my refund.

 

 

[Techno Viking]

7 minutes ago, johng said:

Seagate and Western Digital hard drives are made in Thailand   you can buy them from a shop like JIB on Lazada cash on delivery, no fakes arrives in a couple of days  no worries about  customs or getting lost for months in the international mail system.

 

Agreed, and both WD and Seagate have official stores on Lazada.

 

WD Lazada

 

Seagate Lazada

 

 

[MrMuddle]

Thanks for all replies. 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

32 minutes ago, MrMuddle said:

Yes 5 Tb (oops)!
Too many fake products. I've got files I want to keep for a long time, I don't want to risk a drive failing after a few months. Once bitten, twice shy!

Sure if one buys from some sidewalk stall. I bought mine from good stores in big malls and never had a problem. Still using them.

I do backup on multiple drives though as anything can fail. I have quite a collection of useless computers.

[thaibeachlovers]

30 minutes ago, johng said:

Seagate and Western Digital hard drives are made in Thailand   you can buy them from a shop like JIB on Lazada cash on delivery, no fakes arrives in a couple of days  no worries about  customs or getting lost for months in the international mail system.

Why buy on line when one can just got to the mall and buy the same thing from the big tech store? Memory fails, but think it's ProBuy or something.

[Techno Viking]

7 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Why buy on line when one can just got to the mall and buy the same thing from the big tech store? Memory fails, but think it's ProBuy or something.

 

Powerbuy ?

[KannikaP]

47 minutes ago, MrMuddle said:

Yes 5 Tb (oops)!
Too many fake products. I've got files I want to keep for a long time, I don't want to risk a drive failing after a few months. Once bitten, twice shy!

I too have files I want to keep and use, mostly music. But 5TB! That's a lot of media. 

[KannikaP]

Just now, KannikaP said:

I too have files I want to keep and use, mostly music. But 5TB! That's a lot of media, over 1000 5GB 1080 movies.

 

[Crossy]

I've fixed the topic title to avoid confusion ????

 

I keep my main files on a RAID enabled NAS, failure of a drive does not cause data loss.

 

My realy, really vital files backup lives on OneDrive with backup on Google Drive (encrypted for privacy of course).

 

[sanuk711]

Isn't the cloud the safest place...., just that all my friends back in Oz who are in the industry, seem to store sensitive info there.

 

I don't know I am a computer blond....

[madmen]

Seagate are manufactured right here in the Thailand and are usually the cheapest. I own a 2 x 1tb hybrid for storage and no problems for years 

[Will27]

Yep, no point in importing one from overseas when you can get them here.

 

https://www.invadeit.co.th/category/portable-hard-drives/5tb/

[sucit]

Just look for stuff on Lazada just buy the one that is heavily favored by Thais by looking at reviews. Usually there is one that has ten to 100 times more positive reviews, you are basically assured a legit product unless you assume Thais don't know what they are doing in their own country. 

[BigStar]

1 hour ago, KannikaP said:

I too have files I want to keep and use, mostly music. But 5TB! That's a lot of media. 

Yup. You have to consider not only movies but series spanning multiple seasons. Some older series are hard to find; once you do, you want to keep them. Games - PC games can be pretty large, setup files + the installations.

 

Also you may have a few backups of your system drive, other archives, etc. Yeah, space can get eaten up quickly nowadays.????

[KannikaP]

35 minutes ago, BigStar said:

Some older series are hard to find; once you do, you want to keep them

That then depends on your age and health status which determines how much time you have on this Earth to watch old TV series and/or play PC games..

[J Town]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Why buy on line when one can just got to the mall and buy the same thing from the big tech store? Memory fails, but think it's ProBuy or something.

Lazada is always less expensive than Tucom.

[Oldie]

3 hours ago, madmen said:

Seagate are manufactured right here in the Thailand and are usually the cheapest. I own a 2 x 1tb hybrid for storage and no problems for years 

I had a lot of problems with Seagate (produced in Thailand and China) and I have 10 at the moment. Now I have to replace another one (like many before) because of bad sectors. But also a Hitachi hard drive stopped working after 2 weeks in a new notebook.

 

Anyway - always have backups and always encrypt important data at least as long as you have warranty so that you can return your hard drive without being worried that someone can read confidential data. 

 

I have a 128 GB SD Card with warranty. It is full of data but can only be read. I can't exchange it because I can't delete the data on it before I send it back for exchange. Very bad. But in the meantime they are not so expensive anymore. I keep it as a kind of archive because it can be read without problems. 

[thaibeachlovers]

4 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Why buy on line when one can just got to the mall and buy the same thing from the big tech store? Memory fails, but think it's ProBuy or something.

It's PowerBuy. I bought all my computer/ DVD etc equipment from them.

[Oldie]

4 hours ago, sanuk711 said:

Isn't the cloud the safest place...., just that all my friends back in Oz who are in the industry, seem to store sensitive info there.

 

I don't know I am a computer blond....

A cloud is a safe place. Or you keep yourself backups at different locations. If you have original data and backups at the same location you will discover that this was a mistake if for instance your hut burns down. 

[BigStar]

40 minutes ago, Oldie said:

I had a lot of problems with Seagate (produced in Thailand and China) and I have 10 at the moment. Now I have to replace another one (like many before) because of bad sectors. But also a Hitachi hard drive stopped working after 2 weeks in a new notebook.

HGST and Toshiba fare best in the Backblaze stats:

 

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q3-2020/

 

One may hope WD learned something from HGST. I bought a couple of 4 TB Toshibas several years ago and they've been really great. Don't usually like Seagate either but got a deal on a 6 TB I couldn't refuse and just use it for the occasional backup.

 

 

[Oldie]

On 10/29/2020 at 9:49 AM, MrMuddle said:

Trying to work out the total cost, with drive price, signed postage costs and possible customs duty. Thanks for all replies.

You have to look if you get an international valid warranty. In respect of 5 TB - if you have an old computer with BIOS instead of UEFI  BIOS hopefully you know about MBR and GPT to avoid disappointments. 

[Techno Viking]

1 minute ago, Oldie said:

You have to look if you get an international valid warranty. In respect of 5 TB - if you have an old computer with BIOS instead of UEFI  BIOS hopefully you know about MBR and GPT to avoid disappointments. 

 

The OP did not specify if external HDD or not but does the BIOS affect those as well ?

[Oldie]

2 minutes ago, Techno Viking said:

 

The OP did not specify if external HDD or not but does the BIOS affect those as well ?

If you want to boot from a 5 TB drive with the old BIOS you will be out of luck. You can if you are willing to use only about 2 TB of the disk and forget the other 3 TB. The problem is that for booting it uses MBR which cannot address more space than about 2 TB.