# Refurbished HDD, Why VS Not ? ... Savings VS Risk ? (Add 2 year warrnty)



## neko77025 (Mar 4, 2017)

Starting here .

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5AD5740815&ignorebbr=1
+ A 2 year warrnty for +$14.00 ( was thinking get 5x and 2x Warranty, They dont use S/Ns , so the 2x Warranties would cover any of the 5 )

I have been looking to upgrade my NAS.  (Going to build A FreeNAS VM on A server I have picked up).

Right now I have Toy NAS , Netgear ReadyNAS (RN102) with 2x 1TB WD RED.  <--- This is about as bad of A nas as you can get.  LOL /sad.  I bought it just to see if I would make use of it.  

Plex is going to be my main storage needs.   

The server is A not issue, it will be overkill for A NAS / Transcoding.


Was planing on geting 3x more WD RED 1TB and making A ZFS or RAID 6 (5 drives ).   But now I am thinking these Seagate Constellation ES.3 3TB  are A hard deal to pass up.  Was thinking of getting 5x and adding 2x 2year warranties to cover any losses) 

What I like about them.
They are A good value ..
 3TB / Enterprise NAS 
7200 RPM  128MB


What I dont like.
Seagate
Refurbished
( I am assuming 2x Warranties will cover all 5 drives because they wont be linked to any S/N)
the fact that I am taking out 2x warranties tells me I feel they will fail ....


Anyhow what are your thoughts ?


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## natr0n (Mar 4, 2017)

I bought a white label wd velo raptor on ebay from goharddrive no issues.

This is a seagate tho... high failure rates. The constellation drives seem to be better quality last I read.

Anyways no worries get it if you want.


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## Killerdroid (Mar 4, 2017)

natr0n said:


> This is a seagate tho... high failure rates.



Careful, on another forum an angry mob descended on me for suggesting that.


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## natr0n (Mar 4, 2017)

Killerdroid said:


> Careful, on another forum an angry mob descended on me for suggesting that.



Let them come if they dare.


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## Killerdroid (Mar 4, 2017)

natr0n said:


> Let them come if they dare.



I think they were more upset that they'd purchased them as backup instead of researching first.
Perhaps it was best to say nothing in the first place.


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## R-T-B (Mar 4, 2017)

Constellations are Enterprise drives, I'd like to see ANY consumer rated drive outlast one.


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## Killerdroid (Mar 4, 2017)

R-T-B said:


> Constellations are Enterprise drives, I'd like to see ANY consumer rated drive outlast one.



You get good and bad in every batch sold. 
I had 2 Constellation drives goes belly up in under 12 months but have never had issues with WD enterprise drives.


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## neko77025 (Mar 4, 2017)

Thats where I am at ... I am scared  of Seagate ... It was not A rumor or fake news .. its just fact.   They had many drives fail for A few years.   Their rep is so damaged now, I would never buy A new drive from them.   It has to be one hell of A deal and something I am ok with losing.

Thinking these will be for PLEX / DVR only drives.  Will keep my readyNAS for PICs / Docs....


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## Jetster (Mar 4, 2017)

Check the smart data when it arrives. If its good and it doesn't have a ton of hours then it will probably be fine


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## neko77025 (Mar 4, 2017)

https://www.extremetech.com/computi...clear-winners-and-losers-but-is-the-data-good

Thats scary


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## Killerdroid (Mar 4, 2017)

neko77025 said:


> Thats where I am at ... I am scared  of Seagate ... It was not A rumor or fake news .. its just fact.   They had many drives fail for A few years.   Their rep is so damaged now, I would never buy A new drive from them.   It has to be one hell of A deal and something I am ok with losing.
> 
> Thinking these will be for PLEX / DVR only drives.  Will keep my readyNAS for PICs / Docs....



WD enterprise drives are my weapon of choice. Tried and tested.
I've purchased older unused drives on fleabay a few times for a cheaper price. It might be worth you taking a look.


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## puma99dk| (Mar 4, 2017)

R-T-B said:


> Constellations are Enterprise drives, I'd like to see ANY consumer rated drive outlast one.



I still had these drives fail more than desktop HGST or WD drives.


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## Aquinus (Mar 4, 2017)

I tend to buy new for the warranty however, I have had a non-insignificant number of WD drives fail on me. When I get the replacement, it's always refurbished and I don't recall ever losing a replacement drive. I don't want to say that buying a refurbished drive from a store will give you the same result but, as far as WD is concerned, I've never had a referb replacement fail. I do think that in a lot of cases, referb parts undergo additional QA which helps mitigate problems.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 5, 2017)

neko77025 said:


> https://www.extremetech.com/computi...clear-winners-and-losers-but-is-the-data-good
> 
> Thats scary



Sigh...Backblaze...

If you _really_ must believe their BS numbers, you might at least look at the latest ones that show WD drives failure rate is about 50% higher than Seagates:






But the reality is that the brand of the drive doesn't matter, the model is more important.  I'd take any Seagate model over a WD Blue or Green*.  But WD Red, Purple, and Black drives are great, and Gold drives are the best of the best.  I'd put these Constellation drives right up there with WD Gold/RE drives.  The Seagate Ironwolf drives are right there with the WD Reds and the Skyhawks are right there with the Purples.  The Seagate Barracuda drives aren't quite at the level of the WD Blacks, but it is a lot closer to the Black drive than it is to the garbage WD Blue drives.

As for the refurbished vs non-refurbished...Well, I wouldn't risk it.

*I'm pretty sure the Greens have been discontinued.


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## Caring1 (Mar 5, 2017)

Do those charts exclude Enterprise drives, or include them?
I think W.D. is the leading supplier of O.E.M. drives for the consumer market, so it's not surprising they have a higher failure rate.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 5, 2017)

Caring1 said:


> Do those charts exclude Enterprise drives, or include them?
> I think W.D. is the leading supplier of O.E.M. drives for the consumer market, so it's not surprising they have a higher failure rate.



Those charts are literally just data from one company that sells data backup and uses cheap desktop grade drives jam packed in servers.  There are several reasons they are total BS.


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## cdawall (Mar 5, 2017)

I haven't had any issues out of mine these are all 2TB constellation refurbs running in raid 50


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## Rowsol (Mar 5, 2017)

I've been eyeballing these.  

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MTJTDGI/?tag=tec06d-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LYVD7ME/?tag=tec06d-20


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## neko77025 (Mar 5, 2017)

I bought 5x of them about a hour ago.


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## R-T-B (Mar 5, 2017)

puma99dk| said:


> I still had these drives fail more than desktop HGST or WD drives.



You bought them?  They are strange little drives, really thick 2.5".  The only reason I am skeptical of anyone buying them without a need is that they used to cost $200.00 plus for a 1TB model.

Of course, today is different.  Everything HDD is cheap.


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## puma99dk| (Mar 5, 2017)

R-T-B said:


> You bought them?  They are strange little drives, really thick 2.5".  The only reason I am skeptical of anyone buying them without a need is that they used to cost $200.00 plus for a 1TB model.
> 
> Of course, today is different.  Everything HDD is cheap.



Nope only Seagate I purchased was their Barracuda 7200.11 back in the day but at work we had servers with them failing so my boss replaced them with HGST and Toshiba drives works much better and cheaper


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## R-T-B (Mar 5, 2017)

puma99dk| said:


> Nope only Seagate I purchased was their Barracuda 7200.11 back in the day but at work we had servers with them failing so my boss replaced them with HGST and Toshiba drives works much better and cheaper



I'm sure.  But my point is more that their enterprise grade drives should not be compared to their consumer ones, or any manufacturers consumer grade drives for that matter.


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## puma99dk| (Mar 5, 2017)

R-T-B said:


> I'm sure.  But my point is more that their enterprise grade drives should not be compared to their consumer ones, or any manufacturers consumer grade drives for that matter.



Ik but still if a better consumer grade desk like a HGST can give a better and safer run, Seagate should at least do a better job.


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## R-T-B (Mar 5, 2017)

puma99dk| said:


> Ik but still if a better consumer grade desk like a HGST can give a better and safer run, Seagate should at least do a better job.



I've always thought Seagate's consumer drives were subpar, no argument there.  But I think anyone can make good stuff it's just a matter of whether they consider it "worth it."  Aparently to Seagate, "consumer" is not very important.


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## R-T-B (Mar 5, 2017)

WHY DID I SAY IT?



 

I have invoked the wrath of the HDD gods.  I hate this, it's only 1 sector but I hate trusting drives like that...  *sighs*  out it goes...


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## micropage7 (Mar 5, 2017)

Killerdroid said:


> Careful, on another forum an angry mob descended on me for suggesting that.


in here i dunno seagate is pretty good


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## kn00tcn (Mar 5, 2017)

i've had 1 reallocated for years on a WD, it really doesnt mean much unless it's growing

someone linked OLD backblaze stats... umm they put new stats every year you know

someone asked about enterprise, backblaze says what they use, it's usually consumer (fine by me, i am not enterprise, i want to know how regular drives are, as a bonus their environment is more harsh than normal, potentially meaning better reliability for home uses)

certain series/models of seagates are much more error prone than others, it doesnt even matter if the overal total count of drives contains more failures than other brands, what matters is if the model you're choosing has those failure rates

speaking of models, pay attention backblaze's data, i mean REALLY look at it, some sets are a few hundred drives, others are a few thousand, do not think the percentages are equal, certainly dont condense the data into a crappy few paragraphs on some site's news article

if you're mirroring data, what is the point of warranty? replace the drive IF needed, are you going to wait to ship around replacements? what if the second drive fails, now you have no mirror at all

am i correct in seeing the price, $72+14 for 3tb? just to store some videos? that price may be getting close to new ones, or externals that you can take apart

edit: i am one to say seagate may suck at times, or that it's hard to trust, but i wont deny that they seem to have quieter drives & that the multiple seagates i've used/continue to use are fine (well, except a 2008 one that parks a lot during use for almost all its life, increasing the 'high fly writes' counter, but hasnt actually failed)


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## Killerdroid (Mar 5, 2017)

micropage7 said:


> in here i dunno seagate is pretty good



Each to their own I guess.


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## neko77025 (Mar 5, 2017)

kn00tcn said:


> am i correct in seeing the price, $72+14 for 3tb? just to store some videos? that price may be getting close to new ones, or externals that you can take apart



When I listed it they were on sale for 59.99 and the warranty is A 3rd party non S/N, So 2 warranties will cover any 2 of 5 that fail first.   So, I would need too divide the cost of 2 across all 5.
14.00 x 2 =28.00 / 5 =5.60 + 60.00 = 65.60 Per 3TB NAS 7200rpm,  New (NON NAS) 7200 rpm 3tb start at about 90.00. *(Edited) Ea HD also had 300egg points $3.00 newegg credit use later on.
So really 62.60 Per Drive*

Yes its only going too be video, But I still don't want to lose it.   It takes A long time to RIP these DVD / BluRays. Also, going to use it for my HDhomerun Cable Card DVR.


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## neko77025 (Mar 10, 2017)

They arrived today.  Ran Crystal Disk Info on them.   1 of them has bad Sectors, another seems too have issues saying on ... moved it to another bay and it did it again.   Returning both of these for refunds and just going to do A Riad Z1.

BTW i dont think they are refurbished,  they are just pulled from systems or something.


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## kn00tcn (Mar 16, 2017)

a lot of stores call everything refurbished rather than saying where it came from (liquidated/offlease/customer return/oem supply/etc)


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## cornemuse (Mar 16, 2017)

I bought just last week, two 1-T WD 2½" BRAND NEW hdds from Frys. $39 each. (Blues)
Fools on Craigslist askin' $50 or more for used, , , , ,


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## P4-630 (Mar 16, 2017)

newtekie1 said:


>



Nice, I'm using 1 Hitachi spinner in my current setup, good drives.


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## cat1092 (Mar 18, 2017)

I have a total of 5 WD RE4's (the SATA-2, 32MB cache versions), only my first, a 500GB model was purchased brand new from Newegg, and I'll be the first to say, bearing the same 5 year warranty, these are indeed upgraded Caviar Blacks, heavier, dual core processors, less vibration. even the two used models that's 1TB each runs like champs. As does the two 500GB models that were new pulls from servers purchased from an eBay seller, going by the name of 'apethouse'. Check out his listings, he guarantees these, and also has some 1 & 2TB HDD's of the same type, though *some* bears the Dell or HP name, simply new pulls from servers. Stock may vary on any given day.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Western-Dig...-0Gb-s-3-5-Enterprise-Hard-Drive/111930324638

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WD-RE4-2TB-...141020?hash=item19f657f19c:g:qAEAAOSwrx5UWr-E

Just don't bother with any of the 'white label' junk of his listings, I would had been burned badly had eBay not stepped in & took action against another seller that I believe were connected with this cat (goHardDrive).

My best luck with HDD's has been WD all of my computing life, while most all of my computers now boots from SSD's (one a NVMe), I'll still use reliable HDD's for data & backup usage.

Cat


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## cat1092 (May 18, 2017)

kn00tcn said:


> a lot of stores call everything refurbished rather than saying where it came from (liquidated/offlease/customer return/oem supply/etc)



Add 'junk' to what's in parentheses!

At today's promo pricing of older drives (many SATA-3 models) to make room for current offerings, some of which may be of more quality, it makes little sense to purchase 'refurbished' HDD's from 3rd party resellers. Number #1 reason, it's whom is performing the refurbishing that counts. 

'Recertified' is the proper term to look for, and what one will receive from a large scale OEM during a warranty swap. I have a 1TB WD Caviar Black (SATA-2) that for two years, never knew was recertified, until looking at the drive very close when removing from the PC & placed into a backup enclosure, where it's been since. Actually I scored big, because my original purchase was a 750GB model of the same drive, figured they were simply out of that size & being that the one sent in was only a couple of months old, was vibrating (probably due to the way Newegg then was shipping drives). 

So in my case, have nothing to complain about, because the drive came straight from WD & took less than two weeks to get the 1TB model, which performed flawlessly for 3 years before deciding to use for backup. If needed, I'd not be afraid to place back into service as a data drive, I used to have one in each PC for backup only, then once these 'crypto' Malware threats were unleashed, went to externals only, with an occasional internal backup prior to making a huge change. A backup image is no good once encrypted by Malware. 

While I don't purchase recertified drives directly, if needed, wouldn't be afraid to, as long as these are on the OEM sites.

Yet the 3rd party ones, to include Newegg/Amazon, no way, many times these comes from the same major eBay suppliers such as 'gohdd' & other sites (Marketplace Sellers). While in general, some are indeed good suppliers with fast free shipping, HDD's is an item to avoid purchasing from, unless stated 'New' in listing. If it says 'Refurbished', may as well be one of those 'White Label' drives. 

If anyone believes the below 2TB HDD for $39.95 is 'New', one may as well believe anything that anyone says, or has zero experience when hardware purchasing. Years back, was bitten once, never again!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-2-Terab...-DVR-PC-MAC-/110898107749?hash=item19d20ad565

I wouldn't trust this in a backup enclosure.

Cat


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