I dunno, I’m one of those people who never stops using a drive until it breaks, and they never really break anymore. Oldest in my current PC is probably 20 year old HDD.
So yeah, these probably are fine and will still last a long time. But for like $20 more you don’t have to worry about losing the data on it.
Edit:
Apparently prices just haven’t changed in half a decade or longer? I knew prices went up for COVID, assumed they went back down at some point.
Not to sound snarky or anything, but since when do prices go down? If people were willing to pay the inflated price, there’s no incentive for them not to make that the new standard.
I agree to some extent, but even before then hardware was getting expensive thanks to stuff like the Bitcoin mining craze. Harddrives have been getting cheaper on a dollar per TB basis for a long time (as they should), but I remember the days when it was cheaper to build a gaming PC than to buy a new console, and those days are long gone. And after COVID hit, greedflation set in to declare what the new normal is.
They’re much cheaper than $20 off a new drive. I bought a 14TB WD server drive from them within the last year for less than it cost me to get an 8TB Elements/Easystore on sale back in 2018. It was easily 50% of the new price for a similar drive.
No issues what’s so ever. Have them in a four drivE QNAS. I was a bit concerned about them being cheaper drives initially but after I got them installed I literally haven’t thought about them again in terms of reliability.
0 complaints and they seem to be doing about as well as some more expensive drives might be.
I mean, I don’t know your use case, but as a self-hoster/ research scientist, I think my usage is much much. And I do rely on mine for business, as my wife and I both rely on it for hosting our data, which for me is large geospatial datasets, and when I’m doing large compute runs, there are many many read writes. We also store a large amount of music/ videos for streaming and running a jelly fin server. Thats been fine as well. I think since in our case we don’t have a ton of people hitting the server at once, its just never as stressed as it might be in a corporate/ multi user environment.
Thank you, I also know it’s a lottery and hopefully I get a nice unit.
I’m going to use it solo as a home server to sync, store and read data. And eventually as a streaming server for jelly fin too, mostly for myself only too.
Refurbished drive.
I’ve had 4 white label drives running for a number of years without issue, planning on eventually getting 12 more and maxing out my servers.
Unfortunately that’s years down the line :(
2nd catch, behind the power on time:
PWDIS drives: if you’re not using them somewhere with sata 3.2/3.3, you need to use an adapter for the power plug, or some tape, to block pins 1-3 (3.3v) as supplying it to these causes them to reset.
Might be worth doing the taping anyway, if you’re using an enclosure or cage (where you can’t use the adapters)
They are also enterprise drives which consume slightly more power and more importantly generate more noise/clicking sounds on average when compared to a consumer drive. Depending on where you were planning to install them, it might not be the best option.
I have a similar one, different seller and possibly submodel, but also a refurb HGST 12T enterprise drive. It sounds like I left a soda on my desk most of the time, subtly popping and ticking.
These are used drives that have about 35K hours (4 years) of power on time.
Good quality drives to be sure, but maybe not as reliable now as they once were.
I scan nontrivial mail (the paper kind) and store it in docspell for later OCR searches, tax purposes etc.
I help keep Sci-Hub healthy
I host several services for de-googling, including Nextcloud, Blocky, Immich, and Searxng
I run Navidrome, that has mostly (and hopefully will soon completely) replace Spotify for my family.
I run Plex (hoping to move to Jellyfin sometime, but there’s inertial resistance to that) that has completely replaced Disney streaming, Netflix streaming, etc for me and my extended family.
I host backups for my family and close friends with an S3 and WebDAV backup target
I run 4x14TB, 2x8TB, 2x4TB, all from serverpartsdeals, in a ZFS RAID10 with two 1TB cache dives, so half of the spinning rust usable at ~35TB, and right now I’m at 62% utilization. I usually expand at about 85%
I too like posting cryptic, non-detailed complaints with minimal to no explanation, logic, or rationale for the express intent to sow confusion and chaos while simultaneously standing for nothing
On Reddit, wallstreetbets used to call everything “retarded” and they’ve stopped and moved to “regarded” as a way of “almost” saying an offensive word.
It was bad, and the funny part is that they were using Retarded as a slur too much and had it taken away after complaints from civil rights watch groups, as disabilities are a protected class, but the proponents would try to claim they were using it as a term of endearment in the ultimate bad faith argument.
I’ve bought a fair amount of drives from them and have had no issues, just today I got in some seagate exos 2x18 drives from them and their packaging was as professional ever.
How noisy are these? I have a pair of shucked WD drives that should be equivalent to reds, and they’re pretty noisy in my otherwise quiet home office. Given they’re only 8TB, upgrading them to SSDs for full silence is something in considering as soon as the pricing and availability permits.
I bought wd red pros since people said they were quiet. I think they were comparing them to these type of enterprise drives because they are absolutely not quiet when seeking. I wouldn’t mind drives like this if they were in a closet or away from me but my nas is in my office/guest bedroom. I’ve since replaced the pros with red plus and they are MUCH quieter.
It looks like NAND and therefore SSD pricing is trending up currently due to some supply limitations. If you want to get some large drives it might be best to try to do it soon, or be prepared for a wait/inflated pricing.
As far as I know there is only one SSD model that meets my criteria (Samsung 870 QVO 8TB), and at $520 right now so I’ve decided it’s best to wait. I’d like it to be quieter but not so badly as to spend $1k on it (need two).
They are very noisy. Lots of clicking and whirring. Enterprise drives are not the same as consumer drives. As others have said this is a great price but I would not recommend using them in a room you are trying to focus in.
Reposting as top level comment also:
these are PWDIS drives: if you’re not using them somewhere with sata 3.2/3.3, you need to use an adapter for the power plug, or some tape, to block pins 1-3 (3.3v) as supplying it to these causes them to reset. Might be worth doing the taping anyway, if you’re using an enclosure or cage (where you can’t use the adapters)
Just be aware.
When I bought some of these earlier this year, the re-seller included an adapter that blocked those pins to prevent the reset issue. Didn’t know what they were for at first and almost tossed them. (I should have read the included slip of paper)
When you’re shipping one item, sure… kinda. When you’re shipping five, it doesn’t make sense to tape the exact same thing to every single one. Especially if the paper is bigger than the item.
We typically affix it to the invoice and package so it’s seen first thing. That’s the best solution we’ve come up with.
How do I know if I’m using sata 3.2/3.3 vs something else?
I have one of these in the 8 TB variant that I use for backup purposes, and I plug it into one of those USB docks, like this one. I have not applied any tape or adaptors and it seems to be working fine.
Approx 35k power on hours. Tested with 0 errors, 0 bad sectors, 0 defects. SMART details intact.
That’s about 4 years of power on time. Considering they’re enterprise grade equipment, they should still be good for many years to come, but it is worth taking into consideration.
I’ve bought from these guys before, packaging was super professional. Card board box with special designed drive holders made of foam; each drive is also individually packed with anti-static bags and silica packs.
This is pretty standard for enterprise equipments — comes with some amount of years of warranty, enterprises depreciate the cost over that many years and sell them as/before the warranty expires to get whatever value they can get (as far as books concerned, they’re already depreciated to $0 anyway).
Came here to ask about the hours. Some quick searching looked like 5 years is an average time to failure, but that might have been for lower-grade hardware?
Backblaze has drives with very similar models in service, has an annualized failure rate of less than 1% on average, and have been in service for 5 years. The average age will continue to rise as usage time continues to rack up.
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“Seller refurbished” just means they’re used and were tested, right?
Most likely, yes
It means they put a new sticker over the old one, and they don’t rattle when you shake them.
Maybe new pulls.
Ah hell. For that price I grabbed 4. I think the same source is selling on newegg as well for a similar price.
the drives I’ve purchased from them in the past have been great considering they’re used server parts.
That really should be in the title…
I dunno, I’m one of those people who never stops using a drive until it breaks, and they never really break anymore. Oldest in my current PC is probably 20 year old HDD.
So yeah, these probably are fine and will still last a long time.
But for like $20 more you don’t have to worry about losing the data on it.Edit:
Apparently prices just haven’t changed in half a decade or longer? I knew prices went up for COVID, assumed they went back down at some point.
A new 12 TB drive is literally 300€ now.
I don’t think it was EVER 100€ for a 12TB, certainly not helium filled. Prices during covid went up, but not even near 3x for hard dives.
Not to sound snarky or anything, but since when do prices go down? If people were willing to pay the inflated price, there’s no incentive for them not to make that the new standard.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/historical-cost-of-computer-memory-and-storage?time=2017..latest
The entire existence of computers outside the last five years…
I agree to some extent, but even before then hardware was getting expensive thanks to stuff like the Bitcoin mining craze. Harddrives have been getting cheaper on a dollar per TB basis for a long time (as they should), but I remember the days when it was cheaper to build a gaming PC than to buy a new console, and those days are long gone. And after COVID hit, greedflation set in to declare what the new normal is.
Where do you get a 12 tb drive for $100?
Yeah, that’s crazy.
I guess all those $100 deals were used too.
So I guess at least used prices went down?
But I remember years ago a shuckable 12tb for like $120-140 on sale wasnt unusual on buildapcsales.
They’re much cheaper than $20 off a new drive. I bought a 14TB WD server drive from them within the last year for less than it cost me to get an 8TB Elements/Easystore on sale back in 2018. It was easily 50% of the new price for a similar drive.
This post is like fate. Just yesterday I came to the conclusion my HDD in my aging PC is going screwy.
These guys have deals all the time, I see them pop up on slickdeals a lot
I was already planning to just drive to microcenter like it was 2017 or something.
I * think * those were the brand I bought?
Regardless, 80 for 12 TB is a steal.
How are the doing so far?
No issues what’s so ever. Have them in a four drivE QNAS. I was a bit concerned about them being cheaper drives initially but after I got them installed I literally haven’t thought about them again in terms of reliability.
0 complaints and they seem to be doing about as well as some more expensive drives might be.
Thank you, I was getting some buyer’s regret because of the hast decision to buy.
I mean, I don’t know your use case, but as a self-hoster/ research scientist, I think my usage is much much. And I do rely on mine for business, as my wife and I both rely on it for hosting our data, which for me is large geospatial datasets, and when I’m doing large compute runs, there are many many read writes. We also store a large amount of music/ videos for streaming and running a jelly fin server. Thats been fine as well. I think since in our case we don’t have a ton of people hitting the server at once, its just never as stressed as it might be in a corporate/ multi user environment.
Thank you, I also know it’s a lottery and hopefully I get a nice unit.
I’m going to use it solo as a home server to sync, store and read data. And eventually as a streaming server for jelly fin too, mostly for myself only too.
What’s the catch? Is there a catch?
Refurbished drive. I’ve had 4 white label drives running for a number of years without issue, planning on eventually getting 12 more and maxing out my servers.
Unfortunately that’s years down the line :(
2nd catch, behind the power on time: PWDIS drives: if you’re not using them somewhere with sata 3.2/3.3, you need to use an adapter for the power plug, or some tape, to block pins 1-3 (3.3v) as supplying it to these causes them to reset. Might be worth doing the taping anyway, if you’re using an enclosure or cage (where you can’t use the adapters)
They are also enterprise drives which consume slightly more power and more importantly generate more noise/clicking sounds on average when compared to a consumer drive. Depending on where you were planning to install them, it might not be the best option.
I have a similar one, different seller and possibly submodel, but also a refurb HGST 12T enterprise drive. It sounds like I left a soda on my desk most of the time, subtly popping and ticking.
They generate a LOT of noise. Not a dealbreaker for most but something to be aware of for sure.
These are used drives that have about 35K hours (4 years) of power on time.
Good quality drives to be sure, but maybe not as reliable now as they once were.
That’s why you buy extras and put them in RAID or zfs!
It just means they’ve survived the first part of the bathtub curve. To me that’s a bonus.
I’ve bought one drive from them so far (14TB WD) and haven’t had any issues thus far after 8 or 12 months.
I have six 14TB drives in my NAS from serverpartdeals. Never had a problem with any of them.
If I may, what do you do with 84TB in your Nas ?
Never ask a man his pay, a woman her weight, or a data horder the contents of their stash.
Jk. Mostly.
I have a similar-ish set up to @Davel23 , I have a couple of cool use cases.
I seed the last 5 arch and opensuse (a few different flavors) ISOs at all times
I run an ArchiveBot for archive.org
I scan nontrivial mail (the paper kind) and store it in docspell for later OCR searches, tax purposes etc.
I help keep Sci-Hub healthy
I host several services for de-googling, including Nextcloud, Blocky, Immich, and Searxng
I run Navidrome, that has mostly (and hopefully will soon completely) replace Spotify for my family.
I run Plex (hoping to move to Jellyfin sometime, but there’s inertial resistance to that) that has completely replaced Disney streaming, Netflix streaming, etc for me and my extended family.
I host backups for my family and close friends with an S3 and WebDAV backup target
I run 4x14TB, 2x8TB, 2x4TB, all from serverpartsdeals, in a ZFS RAID10 with two 1TB cache dives, so half of the spinning rust usable at ~35TB, and right now I’m at 62% utilization. I usually expand at about 85%
I been wanting to self host my own S3 Server may I ask how you do it?
They’re generally highly regarded.
Censorship of words makes me not know which definition of regarded you are using.
Oh like the stonk apes
I too like posting cryptic, non-detailed complaints with minimal to no explanation, logic, or rationale for the express intent to sow confusion and chaos while simultaneously standing for nothing
/s
The /s actually makes this one more sincere.
On Reddit, wallstreetbets used to call everything “retarded” and they’ve stopped and moved to “regarded” as a way of “almost” saying an offensive word.
Thanks for clearing up the confusion
That’s regarded
It was bad, and the funny part is that they were using Retarded as a slur too much and had it taken away after complaints from civil rights watch groups, as disabilities are a protected class, but the proponents would try to claim they were using it as a term of endearment in the ultimate bad faith argument.
Dude what are you even trying to say here
Check @ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 's explanation
I’ve bought a fair amount of drives from them and have had no issues, just today I got in some seagate exos 2x18 drives from them and their packaging was as professional ever.
How noisy are these? I have a pair of shucked WD drives that should be equivalent to reds, and they’re pretty noisy in my otherwise quiet home office. Given they’re only 8TB, upgrading them to SSDs for full silence is something in considering as soon as the pricing and availability permits.
I bought wd red pros since people said they were quiet. I think they were comparing them to these type of enterprise drives because they are absolutely not quiet when seeking. I wouldn’t mind drives like this if they were in a closet or away from me but my nas is in my office/guest bedroom. I’ve since replaced the pros with red plus and they are MUCH quieter.
They’re also slower.
Doesn’t bother me much since I’m only using it for media.
It looks like NAND and therefore SSD pricing is trending up currently due to some supply limitations. If you want to get some large drives it might be best to try to do it soon, or be prepared for a wait/inflated pricing.
As far as I know there is only one SSD model that meets my criteria (Samsung 870 QVO 8TB), and at $520 right now so I’ve decided it’s best to wait. I’d like it to be quieter but not so badly as to spend $1k on it (need two).
They are very noisy. Lots of clicking and whirring. Enterprise drives are not the same as consumer drives. As others have said this is a great price but I would not recommend using them in a room you are trying to focus in.
Interest to know this too, deal appears too good…
If the deal is too good to be true, it probably is.
6gb sas is regularly found for 30-40$. 80$ for 12gb sounds reasonnable. And you’ll save 50% power per GB
I dunno, 80 for a Hitachi seems a little low, but not too good.
Not sure I’d buy one used tho.
Reposting as top level comment also: these are PWDIS drives: if you’re not using them somewhere with sata 3.2/3.3, you need to use an adapter for the power plug, or some tape, to block pins 1-3 (3.3v) as supplying it to these causes them to reset. Might be worth doing the taping anyway, if you’re using an enclosure or cage (where you can’t use the adapters) Just be aware.
I’ve done the tape thing before. It was a little bit of a pain but not that hard.
When I bought some of these earlier this year, the re-seller included an adapter that blocked those pins to prevent the reset issue. Didn’t know what they were for at first and almost tossed them. (I should have read the included slip of paper)
As someone who regularly ships items with a slip of paper meant to be read, this was infuriating to read. Lmao
Tape it to the item.
Witg a big fat warning symbol.
Anything beyond that was done in purpose
When you’re shipping one item, sure… kinda. When you’re shipping five, it doesn’t make sense to tape the exact same thing to every single one. Especially if the paper is bigger than the item.
We typically affix it to the invoice and package so it’s seen first thing. That’s the best solution we’ve come up with.
Classic overconfidence - “I have installed a hard drive before, what could they possibly be trying to tell me on that paper?”
I learned and won’t make that mistake again… until I do
How do I know if I’m using sata 3.2/3.3 vs something else?
I have one of these in the 8 TB variant that I use for backup purposes, and I plug it into one of those USB docks, like this one. I have not applied any tape or adaptors and it seems to be working fine.
Oh, is that what “power disable” means?
Are these good for a home server that would be always on? First time building
That’s about 4 years of power on time. Considering they’re enterprise grade equipment, they should still be good for many years to come, but it is worth taking into consideration.
I’ve bought from these guys before, packaging was super professional. Card board box with special designed drive holders made of foam; each drive is also individually packed with anti-static bags and silica packs.
Highly recommend.
Is this a normal sound for it? https://sndup.net/bpx9/
Pretty sure that’s the usual preventive wear clicking sound that’s just part of newer drives’ design…?
All my server drives come to me with these many hours and truck on for many years.
This is pretty standard for enterprise equipments — comes with some amount of years of warranty, enterprises depreciate the cost over that many years and sell them as/before the warranty expires to get whatever value they can get (as far as books concerned, they’re already depreciated to $0 anyway).
Came here to ask about the hours. Some quick searching looked like 5 years is an average time to failure, but that might have been for lower-grade hardware?
Backblaze has drives with very similar models in service, has an annualized failure rate of less than 1% on average, and have been in service for 5 years. The average age will continue to rise as usage time continues to rack up.
Thanks for the post. I just bought 4 of them as a stopgap.