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We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time (tm) ). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

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People’s thoughts on preowned/refurbished hard drives? (alien.top)

submitted 10 months ago by nathan12581@alien.top to c/datahoarder@selfhosted.forum

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I’m currently a student so I don’t have thousands to spend on hard drives and I’d really love to make a compact storage server with large capacity to do stuff like a Plex server. I’ve been looking and I see good deals on sites like eBay, however they seem too cheap sometimes. What are things I should look out for/should I just not get used hard drives?

I need to mention this would not be for critical data such as personal photos etc. it would just be raw data storage that I could afford to lose- it would just be a pain.

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[–] morningcupoftea@alien.top 2 points 10 months ago

In case OP or any visitors don’t know:

Recertified ≠ Refurbished/used/preowned.

Manufacturer recertified means the drive you get is one that passes OEM/factory testing. There’s a certain QA standard that manufacturer recert drives need to meet.

Refurb etc means you get a gamble drive that probably has SMART data reset so you have no idea what you’re getting. Could be a good deal or a waste of money, very little predictability.

Personally I’d never buy a refurb—I’d only buy recert or something that a trusted friend has used.

[–] Godort@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

They're always a gamble.

Sometimes you have another decade of life in them and sometimes they fail within a month. I wouldn't bother unless I was getting an insanely good deal (like over 50% off retail) as I'm likely to replace it within the year.

I also wouldn't trust them outside of a mirrored or pairity RAID just in case the data on that disk proves to be important

[–] sir_topham_biff@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

It's fine as long as you do a proper secure erase on them first.

[–] NyaaTell@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

I don't like sloppy seconds. Buy new, buy big!

[–] deathbyburk123@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

If buying in bulk they are the best buy since save so much you can buy a spare or 2 and still save. If you can't afford a spare don't do it either way

[–] c_rbon@alien.top 1 points 10 months ago

I’ve only bought one so far, but i’m a fan of manufacturer re-certified drives from serverpartdeals. Prices seem to go up and down however, as the 18TB i bought for $180 is now $270 (seagate exos 2x18)