Used Hard Disk Drives

[Boomwebsearch]

I recently purchased a hard drive on eBay (used) and am not sure if I made the right decision to purchase this item. I still have the opportunity to return this drive so I am not sure about this hard drive. Please let me know if this hard drive model is a good one and do you think that used drives are worth purchasing.

 

 

link to the hard drive which I purchased on eBay:   https://www.ebay.com/itm/202165236927

 

*Note that I am not affiliated with the seller of this item in any way and do not endorse any of this seller's products.

 

 

[Boomwebsearch]

Additionally, what are the failure rates on this drive which I purchased?

[Crunchy Dragon]

I actually can't find much about this drive, I would say the best you can do is hope for the best and make sure it's a clean drive without any viruses or anything. Also make sure you constantly back up your data in case it does randomly die on you.

[TheGlenlivet]

Whenever I buy stuff like this I always do a fresh format on it and then put it into a raid where if it fails, I can replace it with something else without losing data. 

That or I have a Drobo which is kind of the same thing.  It builds an array with whatever drives you put into it and then can rebuild data automatically if one fails.  That way you are mitigating some of the risk of using refurbished or used drives.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Ping its SMART information using a tool like CrystalDiskInfo. Then look at the following attributes

• Reallocated sector count - If this is higher than 2, the drive is about to die
• Spin retry count - Should be as low as possible, but if it keeps increasing, the drive is about to die.
• Reported uncorrectable errors - Should be as low as possible
• Command timeout - If this is not 0, there's a problem with the drive
• Power-On Hours - Should be lower than 43,800 hours as possible. 43,800 hours is 5 years of 24/7 operation and is more of a rule of thumb for service life. Granted this does not mean that as soon as it hits 43,800 hours, the drive will die, but should effectively be treated as being on its last legs.

[Enderman]

Just don't buy used storage.

[Imbellis]

Generally, Toshiba drives have a lower failure rate than most other HDDs; however, since you're buying used, I'd be careful.

As said by @M.Yurizaki, you should do some diagnostic. I very much agree with that.

Additionally, I also agree with @Enderman. If I were in your shoes, I'd spend the extra twenty bucks to buy a new 1TB HDD - doubling both storage and cost for the extra stability and insurance.