Got a recertified 250GB from Woot a while back. It lasted a year and then tanked with almost no warning.
Obviously that’s anecdotal evidence. Most of the time I’ve been very happy with the Barracuda hard drives. But hard drives are probably the one item I don’t like to purchased as refurb/recertified, because unlike most solid state electronics, hard drives really do wear out.
Remember folks, hard drives come in two forms: dying and dead.
All I can say is I got this in a woot off (I believe the first time they had it) and I’m now trying to move all the data off of it because I’m pretty sure its dying. I have 4 hdds in my computer, all of them reported to be fine on a SMART test except this one took over a week and still wasn’t complete - so I’m assuming its the dying one. Like someone said above, they probably just assumed it was a dumb customer return, but it appears to still be faulty. Still, with a 6 month warranty, if you are only storing media (I put it in my Myth box) it could turn out to be a good deal.
Yeah, not a fan of recert HD’s - I got one of the Maxtor 160 GB 2.5" externals on Woot, and it’s starting to make noise… never a good thing with drives.
I bought this exact drive on Newegg for $89 (W FREE shipping) a couple of months ago on one of their email specials - if you have not signed up for their email deals, do so… there are some great buys.
About the only way I would buy a recert drive is if I was going to do a RAID array …
As for drives in general, I just plugged in 16 of my externals to my G5 1.8 Dual Powermac and it tells me that I have 4.3 TB… I am starting to scare myself… they are planning a take over, I just feel it…
I have this very drive, purchased elsewhere (eBay reseller). Mine is also recertified and has been in use for the last 5 months with zero problems. It does run a little on the hot side after hours of operation. A case with lots of air flow would be a good idea when using this HD.
Respiffed doesn’t bother me, they’re usually as good or better than new are, but if it does bother you, check the link.
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One one hand I’d assume there would be less DOA’s with recerts since they have been checked out, but on the other hand all that shipping could mess something up in the long run.
My 8 x 750 Raid5 with these would disagree with you… 300MB/s sequential reads on a $100 Dell Perc5 controller (Nobody else is really getting over 300MB/s with this controller regardless)
I have a similar HD that I got through NewEgg. It was a man. recertified one and honestly, it has not given me any problems at all.
If you wish to spend more money on the same product else where, go for it. There is always the chance of a DOA though.
I bought two refurb HP computers (not from Woot) but both had Seagate 320GB 7200.10 drives. One failed within a week. I can’t say if the drives were the reason for the original return, but everything else still works fine on both computers (replaced both Seagate drives with other manufacturer’s drives).
I own this drive. i bought it a month back on newegg, it was around $120 with shipping, but it was new and has a 3 year warranty.
The question you have to ask yourself is, is a 3 year warranty worth the extra 35 bucks. It might be, as hard drives do have a pretty high failure rate after a year or two; it may not be if you plan to upgrade every year or so anyhow as many of us have to do. Also, despite the horror stories and screaming trolls, the DOA rate for re-certified is the same or lower than new, because these have actually been checked by a person. chances are half the people who get DOA’s just plain dont know how to plug it in and wont pull over and ask directions.
On the plus side, if you have not had the pleasure of having a hard drive this large, it is just lovely, i actually used to back up all my external drives, rather than the other way around. I stuck it my media center PC and backed up all my dvd’s onto it with plenty of room for illicit downloading activities from piratebay. its a great buy if you want, say , all 4 seasons of stargate atlantis in HD at your fingertips.
In case you are wonder, this does have the weird Gb math where 750Gb is actually about 690 Gigabytes once installed. I might actually get this one here because ive already found my self having to delete old swaths to download new shows.
The new one I just looked at for $110 says 5-yr warranty. Seriously now, doesn’t the manufacturer have a lot more knowledge about how it’s expected to last than we do? All the reports here are anecdotal. I believe more in the manufacturer’s estimate.
By six months time I’d have redundancy, or I’d be crossing my fingers a lot.
Wrt the statement “a lot of drives fail after the first two or three years”… most electronics (and especially hard drives) have an infant mortality rate that’s higher than the long-term mortality rate.
everyone had a S.M.A.R.T. failure at boot or within a week, too bad i didnt even test em for 6 months after I bought em. I could have complained and gotten em swapped out or somethng…
over 20 years of shopping via the internet… from my 2400 baud and running a slip connection thru my netcom shell, to now, it was my only bad internet purchase.
but just to be fair woot, if you are listening, i’d be willing to trade my busted 250’s for these 750’s,
Calculate the number of hours it will take to re-do a video project… If you’ve never done a video project, you can’t imagine the pain of having a hard drive crash that has not been backed up.
The price of the drive is moot compared to the time… At least with a 5 year warranty the mfg has enough confidence to replace the drive.
If someone were to offer data recovery (most places start at like $1000) on a refurb - then we’ll talk.
I’m even getting sour on OEM drives - or even getting one delivered to my house - the packing is not great - also, it makes more sense that a pallet of drives gets handled gentler than a single box…