Who are we?
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). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.
-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread
What’s the catch? This is the best deal I can find on the internet by a fair margin. This seller has an amazon store page as well and seems to have a good reputation on both. The seller claims its a new HDD from a reputable brand and offers a 5 year sellers warranty.
The catch is that they're Seagate drives. Seagate have some of worst reliability in the industry and you're buying it secondhand from eBay.
Personally I'd rather just set my money on fire.
That’s a good point. According to BackBlaze’s Q1 2023 report Seagate drives have a 2.28% annualized failure rate. Which is quite a bit higher than the next closest comparison HGST which has a 1.1% afr.
That risk seems worth it to me at this level of discount.
Hey at that price it's at least not a huge loss if they only last a few years. Best not to keep anything you can't replace on them anyway.
34k customers and a 100% positive approval rating? Not one person in all those customers was even neutral about their purchase? Super fishy. That seems not possible. I'm guessing this is a total scam just from that.
Edit: after scrolling this sellers feedback it all looks legit. That's just so rare to have 100% with that many reviews.
I mean, if I was selling new hardware for that cheap too, I would probably have a high approval rating.
I looked into this before with a similar deal by a 3rd party seller on Amazon. The enterprise drives (I was looking at those EXOS drives, too) must be sold by the manufacturer certified reseller or you run the chance of getting zero warranty. That being said, I've seen plenty of conflicting stories by people that bought them and needed to submit an RMA. I'd say it was a 60/40 split of honoring the warranty to not honoring it.
Long story short, it's a gamble. They're likely good drives, but you're rolling the dice if something goes wrong with them.
Definitely check the SMART status for uptime when you receive them. Make sure you can return it before you buy it as well
Seems too good to be true, I bought 12 of them refurbished for around that price. EBay has the money back guaranteed, so if you are willing to try it with the chance with it, it could be a great deal. Your call though.
Yeah, I’ve went ahead and ordered 3. I’ll try to remember to post here if I have any issues.
Probably a little late now, but make sure you use a service that works with the guarantee like a credit card. I don't think it works with PayPal but don't quote me on that.
Thanks for the response. I used PayPal for the purchase. I could still probably cancel the purchase for the next little bit if needed. I know its pretty easy to contest an order with PayPal as a last resort. Link to paypal’s dispute policy
I’m also posting this so that others looking for a deal on prime day can see it and the community can critically examine the listing. So it may be useful for others.
Was PayPal the only option to buy it?
I realized I probably should have added more context so I’ve edited the above post a soon as I posted.
It looks like the seller also accepts Apple Pay and credit card.
Ive had plenty good and plenty bad with seagate. Just for the sake of finding other drives here is a decent site ive used in the past... Diskprices
Also serverpartdeals
Both seem to have similar seagate drives around same pricing renewed so be curious of the drive is actually new.
I'm in the market for a drive for my new proxmox server and not opposed to being a guineapig.
That’s pretty good, but that drive is refurbished.
Oh sorry I didn't realize the ebay post was for a new drive. I just automatically assumed ebay was used/refurbished as well. My bad this doesn't compare as I was expecting.
I bought four of those drives from SPD to put in my NAS. After testing and burn in, one of them started failing tests. SPD had me send the failing drive in and they sent me a new one. Otherwise these have been great so far.
Editing this 10 days later, having two more drives fail SMART tests after a sudden sharp increase in offline uncorrectable sectors. I'm trying to go through the RMA process now. I can no longer recommend this unless you're okay playing the RMA game until you get reliable drives. Backblaze tested the exact Seagate drives I'm using and only had a 0.60% annual failure rate. The fact that I'm seeing 3 out of 4 drives I've bought showing signs of failure makes me think something is wrong with the ones they're selling.
Can you even fit 18TB on a drive that size?
Sure, we have 22TB in that format already
Old post but they have plans to hit 30-40TB in the next few years.