Is it safe to buy used hard drives?

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Ali Tauseef

Ali Tauseef

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Nov 20, 2012
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Hi everyone...
I've been thinking about getting a new HDD since I am running low atm.. I can find new decent hard drives for around 60-80 dollars but then I thought about used which can be found way cheaper on Ebay?
So used HDDs worth buying?
 
Solution
Solandri

The problem isn't old data on the drive. The problem is you don't know if the previous owner has dropped it or otherwise damaged it in a non-obvious way.

Like CDs and DVDs, hard drives use a ton of error correction coding to be able to write and read data back from microscopic and inconsistent magnetized metal grains. You can abuse them and they'll still appear to work just fine. But the abuse means they're much more likely to suddenly fail.

It's like analog video vs digital video. With analog TV, as the signal faded you'd get static in the picture and it would start to warp. You could see that the TV was having problems picking up the signal. But digital TV adds error correction. So as the...
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Solandri

Solandri

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Jan 4, 2012
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The problem isn't old data on the drive. The problem is you don't know if the previous owner has dropped it or otherwise damaged it in a non-obvious way.

Like CDs and DVDs, hard drives use a ton of error correction coding to be able to write and read data back from microscopic and inconsistent magnetized metal grains. You can abuse them and they'll still appear to work just fine. But the abuse means they're much more likely to suddenly fail.

It's like analog video vs digital video. With analog TV, as the signal faded you'd get static in the picture and it would start to warp. You could see that the TV was having problems picking up the signal. But digital TV adds error correction. So as the signal degrades the picture will remain just fine, and then suddenly when the signal degradation just barely exceeds the capability of the error correction to reconstruct the picture, it will just stop working, no warning. HDDs which have been abused can fail the same way - seem to be working fine one day, then suddenly doesn't work.
 
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J

junkeymonkey

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Nov 11, 2013
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I use used hard drives but there my used drives that I used from brand new I bought .


''If they show me a S.M.A.R.T. print out, is 50% discounted, MAYBE'' I can show you smart info 100% checked out fine and send you a junk drive ??? that e-bay no way

brand new 1 day old could fail as one that 10 years old but its that piece of mind I get with brand new first quality part

I would trust something like these for a Linux install ?

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100167523%2050001306%204016&IsNodeId=1&name=Desktop%20Internal%20Hard%20Drives&isdeptsrh=1

like this one has a 1 year warrantee and only 20 bucks for a 250gb drive ??

Warranty
Limited Warranty period (parts): 1 year
Limited Warranty period (labor): 1 year

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136979
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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If it is under $10, and you only have non-critical data on it...go for it.
 
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