"Renewed" disks
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I recently bought a new 14TB disk drive to put in my new 4-disk enclosure (no raid or anything special, just a simple enclosure to save power strips) connected to my file server via 6gb eSATA. I liked the way it performed so went back to buy another one only to find it was out of stock but they offered a "renewed" version of the same disk for $10 less. I decided against this as disk life seemed important and I don't care how much they polished the case, the disk itself had obviously done some amount of spinning before it was "renewed". Anyone got any definite knowledge or even vague opinions about this?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I recently bought a new 14TB disk drive to put in my new 4-disk enclosure (no raid or anything special, just a simple enclosure to save power strips) connected to my file server via 6gb eSATA. I liked the way it performed so went back to buy another one only to find it was out of stock but they offered a "renewed" version of the same disk for $10 less. I decided against this as disk life seemed important and I don't care how much they polished the case, the disk itself had obviously done some amount of spinning before it was "renewed". Anyone got any definite knowledge or even vague opinions about this?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
Use the renewed one as a backup / for backups of the new one (or vise versa).
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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I recently bought a new 14TB disk drive to put in my new 4-disk enclosure (no raid or anything special, just a simple enclosure to save power strips) connected to my file server via 6gb eSATA. I liked the way it performed so went back to buy another one only to find it was out of stock but they offered a "renewed" version of the same disk for $10 less. I decided against this as disk life seemed important and I don't care how much they polished the case, the disk itself had obviously done some amount of spinning before it was "renewed". Anyone got any definite knowledge or even vague opinions about this?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
$10 off on a $300 dollar HDD to get a used drive? I'll give it a miss. :-D
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I recently bought a new 14TB disk drive to put in my new 4-disk enclosure (no raid or anything special, just a simple enclosure to save power strips) connected to my file server via 6gb eSATA. I liked the way it performed so went back to buy another one only to find it was out of stock but they offered a "renewed" version of the same disk for $10 less. I decided against this as disk life seemed important and I don't care how much they polished the case, the disk itself had obviously done some amount of spinning before it was "renewed". Anyone got any definite knowledge or even vague opinions about this?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
HDDs are assembled in a clean room ([How it's made - Western Digital Hard Disk Drives - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rDaTEnR4w)), because even dust particles can cause damage to the platters or R/W heads. There is no guarantee that the "renewal" work was performed to the same standard. Note that some HDD manufacturers will sell refurbished drives. These are typically repaired drives that have been tested by the manufacturer to meet the same standards as new drives, and are typically sold at a significant discount. Going to Western Digital's website, a MyCloud Home 8TB lists for [US $299](https://www.westerndigital.com/products/cloud-storage/wd-my-cloud-home#WDBVXC0080HWT-NESN), while a refurbished device lists for [US $199](https://www.westerndigital.com/products/recertified/cloud-storage/my-cloud-home-recertified#RWDBVXC0080HWT-NESN). Personally, given the relatively low price/TB of new HDDs, I would not risk my data on a drive that has already failed once.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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HDDs are assembled in a clean room ([How it's made - Western Digital Hard Disk Drives - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rDaTEnR4w)), because even dust particles can cause damage to the platters or R/W heads. There is no guarantee that the "renewal" work was performed to the same standard. Note that some HDD manufacturers will sell refurbished drives. These are typically repaired drives that have been tested by the manufacturer to meet the same standards as new drives, and are typically sold at a significant discount. Going to Western Digital's website, a MyCloud Home 8TB lists for [US $299](https://www.westerndigital.com/products/cloud-storage/wd-my-cloud-home#WDBVXC0080HWT-NESN), while a refurbished device lists for [US $199](https://www.westerndigital.com/products/recertified/cloud-storage/my-cloud-home-recertified#RWDBVXC0080HWT-NESN). Personally, given the relatively low price/TB of new HDDs, I would not risk my data on a drive that has already failed once.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
Daniel Pfeffer wrote:
a drive that has already failed once
^ This. Why else does anyone return a drive? It's a ticking timebomb. I would not use a drive for anything important. That includes using it as a backup drive, as someone above suggested. Why would you back up anything on a drive you'd have less trust in than a drive for your "live" data?? Unless it's purely as an additional backup set.
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$10 off on a $300 dollar HDD to get a used drive? I'll give it a miss. :-D
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
But think of all the pron "important work documents" you could recover if they haven't wiped it properly! :-D
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote:
a drive that has already failed once
^ This. Why else does anyone return a drive? It's a ticking timebomb. I would not use a drive for anything important. That includes using it as a backup drive, as someone above suggested. Why would you back up anything on a drive you'd have less trust in than a drive for your "live" data?? Unless it's purely as an additional backup set.
dandy72 wrote:
Why else does anyone return a drive?
I had to search on "renewed", as I had no idea what the term means: 4. Renewed In general, refurbished and renewed refer to the same thing. But Amazon's renewed means more things. It not only includes refurbished products, but also pre-owned and open-box products. Pre-owned: Products that are likely used, but were in better condition when returned than a refurbished product may have been. Open-box: Products whose packaging was opened but the actual product was not used. A large percentage of refurbished products are open box, e.g., the box was opened but the product never used. It's possible that the item was non-functional and has been repaired, but in the case of HD, that is highly unlikely due to the conditions necessary for repair. All refurbished items have been inspected, in contrast to production items where it's typically 1 in 10,000, so refurbs can be a good choice. However, for $10 off a $300 item? I'd buy new. If it was 1/3 off, I'd think about it.
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Daniel Pfeffer wrote:
a drive that has already failed once
^ This. Why else does anyone return a drive? It's a ticking timebomb. I would not use a drive for anything important. That includes using it as a backup drive, as someone above suggested. Why would you back up anything on a drive you'd have less trust in than a drive for your "live" data?? Unless it's purely as an additional backup set.
OP said it was "the only one available". Everybody ignores that point.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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Use the renewed one as a backup / for backups of the new one (or vise versa).
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
Gerry Schmitz wrote:
Use the renewed one as a backup / for backups of the new one
Backups are for for cowards. Live dangerously!
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth. To err is human, to arr is pirate.
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OP said it was "the only one available". Everybody ignores that point.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
I still wouldn't buy the refurbished disk. It's not as if new disks are not being made, so in the worst case he can buy new from another seller.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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HDDs are assembled in a clean room ([How it's made - Western Digital Hard Disk Drives - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rDaTEnR4w)), because even dust particles can cause damage to the platters or R/W heads. There is no guarantee that the "renewal" work was performed to the same standard. Note that some HDD manufacturers will sell refurbished drives. These are typically repaired drives that have been tested by the manufacturer to meet the same standards as new drives, and are typically sold at a significant discount. Going to Western Digital's website, a MyCloud Home 8TB lists for [US $299](https://www.westerndigital.com/products/cloud-storage/wd-my-cloud-home#WDBVXC0080HWT-NESN), while a refurbished device lists for [US $199](https://www.westerndigital.com/products/recertified/cloud-storage/my-cloud-home-recertified#RWDBVXC0080HWT-NESN). Personally, given the relatively low price/TB of new HDDs, I would not risk my data on a drive that has already failed once.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
> HDDs are assembled in a clean room No way anyone is going to open a factory-sealed drive. Whatever 'renewed' means, it doesn't mean that. What matters here is how many hours of operation the drive has experienced - they don't last forever. I think SMART might tell you that, but only *after* you've bought it, of course. As for why it was returned, well people return stuff for all sorts of reasons. If it's Amazon, they have a very liberal returns policy. But also, what Griff said.
Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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> HDDs are assembled in a clean room No way anyone is going to open a factory-sealed drive. Whatever 'renewed' means, it doesn't mean that. What matters here is how many hours of operation the drive has experienced - they don't last forever. I think SMART might tell you that, but only *after* you've bought it, of course. As for why it was returned, well people return stuff for all sorts of reasons. If it's Amazon, they have a very liberal returns policy. But also, what Griff said.
Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
The big risks with "renewed"/"refurbished" drives are that you don't know how long they were operating, under what conditions, or what kind of refurbishment work was performed on them. I don't think the risk is worth it.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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OP said it was "the only one available". Everybody ignores that point.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
-
I recently bought a new 14TB disk drive to put in my new 4-disk enclosure (no raid or anything special, just a simple enclosure to save power strips) connected to my file server via 6gb eSATA. I liked the way it performed so went back to buy another one only to find it was out of stock but they offered a "renewed" version of the same disk for $10 less. I decided against this as disk life seemed important and I don't care how much they polished the case, the disk itself had obviously done some amount of spinning before it was "renewed". Anyone got any definite knowledge or even vague opinions about this?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
If you aren't using raid then you are prepared to lose some files if a disk fails, so, as long as the warranty is good, a "renewed" drive shouldn't make any difference. However, as has been mentioned, $10 off seems a very small reduction; I'd expect this disk to be open-box, 1 or 2 power cycles and power on hours in single figures and even then I'd haggle. If you were using raid, then using a "renewed" disk shouldn't be a problem, but again $10 seems a pretty low reduction. Not using raid and expecting that a new disk would be less likely to fail than a "renewed" one is just being optimistic.
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OP said it was "the only one available". Everybody ignores that point.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
