Lynn McGuire wrote:

Why is the cheapest WD 8 TB bare drive on Big River $303 ?
https://www.amazon.com/Red-8TB-Hard-...dp/B01BYLY4DM/

Do I need to buy an WD 8 TB external drive for $225 and remove the bare drive from it ?
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Desktop-...dp/B01LQQHLGC/

Please note that I am not interested in Seagate or any other manufacturer. I am going with WD for the moment.

Because of the slashed $299 price (marked down to $225) for the USB
cased unit, looks like that is a sale price. So the non-sale price of
the USB case drive is about the same as the non-sale price for the
single drive to which you linked.

https://www.wdc.com/products/external-storage.html
Click on the "My Book (New)" image.

No matter on what size you select, all prices are listed as "promo".
WDC is doing a promotional sale on that product family. Now you'll have
to find or wait for a sale on red WDC HDDs, or wait until the 8TB My
Book is no longer on sale to see what is its actual non-sale price, so
you are not comparing apples to oranges regarding pricing.