How many of you buy used hard drives?

[Goose]

I'm after a new NAS hard drive but I dont have the budget to buy a new mega capacity drive and i'm wondering if anyone has any experience buying used drives? If I were to buy used i'd probably only consider lightly used ones although i'm not sure how many power on hours a drive can have to be considered lightly used. I also dont know if the manufacturer warranty is transferrable.

Thanks

 

[Cyber-Mav]

most of my nas drives are used. seagate 3tb, and 4 or 5 wd reds 3tb. they probably out of warranty now due to age but still work fine. light use since they are mostly spun down and only spin up when accessing the video files from tv etc. warrantly usually goes on the serial number, last time i done rma with wd and seagate they just needed the serial number to be within warranty period. they didnt ask where i got the drives from.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

How many of you? How is that even a question? Who knows how many people buys used hard drives?

 

[d_brennen]

All sold used hard drives have buyers.

Personally it's one of the few things I wouldn't buy used, unless it's a secondary device for throwaway stuff, like game installs

 

[tamzzy]

used hdd buyer here lol

i wouldn't buy a used hdd if they're >2 years old though; mostly they're b-grade buys (so little use, rather than a true "used hdd")
and as above, only used for throwaway stuff, never for data

 

[Armageus]

I have no issue with buying used NAS/Enterprise drives (particularly when I will be using them in RAID arrays, or with other methods of redundancy) , but for personal use it would only be where something like a CrystalDiskInfo screenshot is provided.

I look at both the Power On Hours, and the Power On Count, and will generally look at drives with lower power on counts, and power on hours that are in the 1-2 year range.

High power on count (i.e. in the 100's) isn't great for drives as it puts more stress on the mechanicals (in the same way that spin up/spin down power saving can also contribute to earlier failure)

Equally excessively high power on hours increases the risk of failure due to the amount of use.

It's also worth ruling out drives based on age as well, as even a low power on count/power on hours drive can be a risk, as old drives not used potentially can have issues with moving parts seizing, or just being badly treated if left on a shelf as a spare etc.

 

[Goose]

How many of you? How is that even a question? Who knows how many people buys used hard drives?

Thanks for taking the time to pick holes in my choice words, very helpful.

Thanks to everyone else for actually replying with helpful information/opinions.

 

[Avalon]

I buy used Hitachi SAS drives in bulk, they’ve been at least as reliable as anything I have purchased new for several years. Now with power costs as they are, local disk shelves are becoming less appealing at home though.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Thanks for taking the time to pick holes in my choice words, very helpful.

Thanks to everyone else for actually replying with helpful information/opinions.

I have always purcahsed second hand drives and never had one single bit of issue.

Is that better?

 

[ballj]

Used HDDs are generally ok - ideally get SMART data if possible and check for any issues.
Used SSDs are slightly different as they have a fixed capacity per cell. Check for a lot of writes to the drive.

Edit - I have purchased prob ~30-40 used drives and no issues so far

 

[Cyber-Mav]

I buy used Hitachi SAS drives in bulk, they’ve been at least as reliable as anything I have purchased new for several years. Now with power costs as they are, local disk shelves are becoming less appealing at home though.

same here i got a lot of sas drives on the cheapo and use them for just storing system images or films etc.

 

[Grimley]

Very rarely. Last one was a 500GB external off the MM, I use it for transferring files around & as a backup for a backup.

 

[Goose]

@Cyber-Mav @Armageus @ballj

Do you all stick to the MM or are you happy to buy from Ebay as well?

 

[Armageus]

@Cyber-Mav @Armageus @ballj

Do you all stick to the MM or are you happy to buy from Ebay as well?

Both MM and Ebay for personal use (although normally stick to sellers who post CrystalDiskInfo or similar), for work have used some I.T. brokerage firms

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Same as long as they show pic of smart info that's good enough. With members market i go on the word of they seller if they say its error free then i take it. I dont out that much trust in ebay sellers

 

[ballj]

@Cyber-Mav @Armageus @ballj

Do you all stick to the MM or are you happy to buy from Ebay as well?

Ebay myself as I dont have access to MM

It tends to be ok - as long as u go through the usual steps of only buying from good feedback sellers etc.
Ex corporate sellers tend to be quite good, as they usually offer some return policy (30d/90d) if there are any issues with the drive - and you can usually get multiple of the same drive (and a discount for multiple purchase).

 

[Fluffybob]

used 4tb and 8tb here, all looking good so far.

 

[chrcoluk]

Brought one for one of my consoles an external WD drive, has worked fine, all my PC drives purchased new though.

 

[lsg1r]

Normally I wouldn't buy second hand hard drives, don't sell mine either, but I did buy my neighbours external Maxtor usb which they'd hardly used for £10-15 (got to be coming up to 10 years now) and it's still going strong.