I also think that modern helium disks will not survive even 10 years, much less 15-20 years. Therefore, they should be avoided for storing valuable archives.

I have the latest Mohican on glass plates from IBM - a working 185Gb made in January 2003. All data is still read even though it hasn't been turned on for years. And at the same time, it was used extremely intensively until 2008, after which it ended up in a box for storage.

I also have a 13.5GB IBM made in June 99, it also reads great.

Buying such a fragile product (even 14TB for $140 is actually too expensive for a used disk without warranty from one year) is a huge chance of losing money and data. I will never buy such a fragile product if it is not sold within "walking" distance and I can not check it inside and out when buying.

At the same time, I had perfect quality, after testing at the time of purchase, drives from WD, which failed for no reason after about 1.5 years, working in ideal conditions and have never been pulled out of the case since the moment of purchase. This is pure luck with hidden factory defects (although well-selected copies without noise and vibration, tested at the time of purchase, still correlate many times more, with a long life), so taking an HDD without a guarantee of at least 3 years is crazy. And used discs without a guarantee, and even carelessly delivered by regular mail, are madness squared.

Quote from: eksine on September 02, 2023, 20:02:11If these are recertified with zero power on hours it means these are used And they have OEM software to rest these hours. They do not even test these, if it works they sell them meaning very high failure rates, depending if these are low power on hours before it was reset these can either be good deals or horribly bad deals.

Didn't know this, thanks for giving that info (first sentence especially), much appreciated! 🙏 It makes sense why is it that much lower in price for "zero on hours", heh.

Quote from: Neenyah on August 30, 2023, 18:05:39

Quote"Factory Recertified, Zero Power Hours, Like New, 5 Years Warranty from Reseller"

There is a lot of those, now how high is the risk amount there, I have no clue as I wouldn't ever get anything but a fully (and really) new drive.

If these are recertified with zero power on hours it means these are used And they have OEM software to rest these hours. They do not even test these, if it works they sell them meaning very high failure rates, depending if these are low power on hours before it was reset these can either be good deals or horribly bad deals. For the price of $300 it's a ripoff. I got my server hard drives off eBay for $140 for 14 TB. These are almost always server pulls. I know the Amazon ones are highly used and abused, read the many bad reviews on them. look up serverpartdeals on eBay, great seller. Excellent customer service

If these are recertified with zero power on hours it means these are used And they have OEM software to rest these hours. They do not even test these, if it works they sell them meaning very high failure rates, depending if these are low power on hours before it was reset these can either be good deals or horribly bad deals. For the price of $300 it's a ripoff. I got my server hard drives off eBay for $140 for 14 TB. These are almost always server pulls. I know the Amazon ones are highly used and abused, read the many bad reviews on them. look up serverpartdeals on eBay, great seller. Excellent customer service

ATA 8.4 GB, Codrut?! God damn, you are packing some ancient stuff at this point, very nice and I'm glad to hear that it's still probably running fine (test it when you can if it's fully out of function, I'm curious 😀).

Also glad to know that your experience with used drives was good, I will look forward to get one then in near future because I'm near my overall "backup limit" across all drives I have so offloading a solid chunk of stuff I can afford to lose (if drive fails at any point) seems like a good way to go if it can be a fairly cheap way to do so.

I'm not particularly young anymore and I'm in PC world since 1993-1994 but my oldest drive is a random 5400 rpm 160 GB Toshiba from an old Acer laptop. Still working fine to this day, but I'm not using it to backup anything important on it (kinda paranoid about losing important files so using only the best and the most reliable drives I have at my disposal).

Well, these are most likely units that were acquired and returned without being used for some reason. It happens. I bought a few used hard drives over the past 3 decades, and none of them ever failed. I still have one ATA 8.4 GB Seagate lying around somewhere. On the other hand, I had two WDs and one Samsung HDD die on me while in the warranty period. I also replaced a SanDisk Extreme SSD in warranty. So... zero power hours is zero power hours, after all. In my book it falls in the "fully and really new" category. :)

He probably meant this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/115743224824

Quote"Factory Recertified, Zero Power Hours, Like New, 5 Years Warranty from Reseller"

There is a lot of those, now how high is the risk amount there, I have no clue as I wouldn't ever get anything but a fully (and really) new drive.

This drive hit the MSRP last time back in July-August 2022. Since then, it topped around US$500. By the end of the year, it will probably drop below 250 bucks as well. 160 bucks for a good, new, 7200 RPM? Sign me up, please!

Quote from: danwat1234_indeed on August 29, 2023, 18:48:17. 16TB Seagate Exos Helium 7200RPM drives are on eBay for 160 bucks all day every day..

There are no such prices on Amazon, see the actual links.

Bad price. 16TB Seagate Exos Helium 7200RPM drives are on eBay for 160 bucks all day every day.. Amazon too via Arsenal drives label

In our stores, much more reliable corporate models from Toshiba with a 5-year warranty have been cheaper since the beginning of the year than the price indicated here without any "promotions" for 16TB.

I want to say that there are a lot of defective ones in batches, judging by the reviews and returns of goods. Carefully check each copy upon purchase.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to check the goods with a remote purchase. Arbitration with a trading platform is complicated in terms of costs for the buyer and the conduct of a controversial case or lawsuit.

Do not buy such goods (if possible) remotely! This is the most fragile product on the planet that needs to be transported to you, literally like fragile crystal glasses.

Buy only in local stores and from sellers, where you can, when buying at least through a usb-sata adapter (powered by 2-3A/12V psu), check the disk in operation - vibration, noise, SMART status and at least some state of the surface of the plates in the software from under Windows/Linux from a laptop.

The quality of the surface can be checked upon purchase (selectively, of course, because a full test takes almost a day) in HDAT2 with laptops that have an eSATA port. Unfortunately, vile laptop manufacturers have stopped adding such a port to laptops, so it is no longer possible to buy a laptop from new models for a full selective testing of the surface of HDD platters when buying. Unless you buy a cheap old laptop at a flea market.

To purchase such a product, you need to prepare in advance and carefully check everything right away. It's a lottery with the luck of how it was handled from the factory to your hands. Most often, movers and sellers are very careless with such a fragile product, which has fatal consequences in the future, especially incompetent buyers who do not understand how delicate this product are.

Quote from: BCM on August 28, 2023, 22:24:38That MSRP is a joke.  Almost $300 for a 16TB HDD really isn't a deal and definitely doesn't warrant an article!  LOL

Exactly! Calling this mess a deal is insulting, even to impulse buyers. No HDD is worth these extremely out of touch prices (@ max ~$150-180, PERIOD, for this drive) and clearly these OEMs need to lose a lot more revenue before they even gets it.

Wise consumers can always... wait but can the OEMs?! Let's find out.

That MSRP is a joke.  Almost $300 for a 16TB HDD really isn't a deal and definitely doesn't warrant an article!  LOL