[brianwski]

Disclaimer: I work at Backblaze.

> Do we know if these drives are the same as you would purchase in a retail outlet

Seagate (for instance) won't sell ANYBODY drives directly, so they force us to get bids from various resellers and distributors. So when we pick the lowest price, I don't think Seagate knows who the drives are going to, but there might be a trick in there somewhere I am not aware of.

[toomuchtodo]

Have you considered becoming a distributor yourself? I would assume at a certain purchasing scale, the cost benefit is apparent, but perhaps not.

[Kye]

This is why every major tech company eventually becomes a domain registrar.

[jjeaff]

Do all major tech companies really register that many domains? I assumed that becoming a registrar was more about pushing your control up the pipeline to reduce risk if things like losing your domain name was the main reason. Rather than saving money on registrations.