I think I have spent enough time overthinking the HDD sizes, new vs used and where to buy my HDDs that I finally got it down to 3 choices for my Backup server in RAIDZ1 x3 drives.
**12TB IronWolf New $16.67/TB from B&H Photo(ok price for new and can use one or 2 to replace used drives in current server) I guess I misread, they are just regular Irowolf NOT Pro drives
vs
12TB HGST HUH721212ALE601 Used $12.17/TB from GoHardDrive(Cheapest and best $/TB but Used)
vs
18TB IronWolf Pro New $15.00/TB from Seagate directly.(Best price/TB I have found for new but probably more TB than I need for a backup server and most overall cost)
So far I don't have experience buying from any of the sellers, how they pack drives for shipping and have never used Seagate drives. Normally I would just buy used drives but since used prices have skyrocketed it seems like it may be better to actually buy new drives and hope they last longer before they fail(since used will probably already have 5+ years of use).
Am I completely overlooking something? Is one objectively a better choice than the others? Are 18TBs too large for a RAIDZ1 setup? Am I still overthinking things and should just flip a 3 sided coin?