Fantom GreenDrive3 1.5TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive with 1 Year Warranty - Refurbished - GD1500U3R - $59.99 - $10 MIR = $49.99 (Buy.com/Rakuten.com)

anyone know what speed the internal hard drive is? Just because it has a usb 3.0 port doesn't mean that it will transfer at those speeds.

Quote from gpman06 : $9.99 for 3 year warranty. I'm in for that also!

Where are you seeing this option?

It's a green drive so most likely 5400 RPM

Quote from JPSftw! : Where are you seeing this option?

Check your email, got it right after I placed my order through square trade.

Quote from musicdj : I haven't seen 2.5TB drives...ever. If you were asking about my 2TB eSata deal, that was at least 1 year ago (maybe 2) and it was around $110-120, so this is definitely a better deal per gigabyte. Then again, having multiple 1.5TB drives or having a single 3TB drive is something to consider...

This:
http://slickdeals.net/f/5850714-F...69-99AR-FS

Quote from gpman06 : It's a green drive so most likely 5400 RPM Check your email, got it right after I placed my order through square trade.

Fill me in on "ordering through square trade". I don't know much about that stuff.

Quote from Wooty : anyone know what speed the internal hard drive is? Just because it has a usb 3.0 port doesn't mean that it will transfer at those speeds.

Most drives have no trouble pushing out 100+MB a second even if they are the slower 5400 RPM variety. I have some green drives in a USB 3.0 case that do 125+MB/sec.

That's a world of difference from the 20MB/sec on a USB 2.0 connection.

Quote from gpman06 : It's a green drive so most likely 5400 RPM Check your email, got it right after I placed my order through square trade.

Good call on this. Better yet, get a 35% off code for Squaretrade - check out http://slickdeals.net/f/5854598-G...net+Forums)

do any esata external hard drives go on sale?

I had a Fantom drive fail on me even though I treated it with kid gloves. Internal HD was fine. It was the controller which failed. Maybe this is more reliable since it's refurbished, but I wouldn't chance it.

I'm going to chance it since I'll only be using it as a backup and might put a whopping 25 hrs use on it a year.

Their rebates are shady, still fighting for one almost 2 yrs old.

Anyone know how this will hold up as a storage drive for my computer? I have an ssd and want an external hard drive for games and storage. So how well will it hold up from constant reads/writes?

good deal for storing movies

Quote from 1093koney : Anyone know how this will hold up as a storage drive for my computer? I have an ssd and want an external hard drive for games and storage. So how well will it hold up from constant reads/writes?

I don't like using refurbished units for long-term storage. That said, data at rest that isn't accessed often should last a long time even on a mechanical drive (regardless of refurbished or not.) Since you want to write once/twice (i.e. using it for games/applications) and read a lot (reading textures in games, or various data for applications) I can't see there being a significant issue, but it's a bit more use-heavy than I'd prefer for a refurbished drive.

A simple test to determine if you're going to be ok purchasing a refurbished drive: if you lost all this data in 6-12 months due to a motor failure on the HDD that you couldn't fix, would you have lost anything significant that wouldn't be replaceable? If the answer is "Nope, I have backups of all critical stuff, and all important photos" then this or the 2.5GB drive is a good choice.

Quote from Wooty : anyone know what speed the internal hard drive is? Just because it has a usb 3.0 port doesn't mean that it will transfer at those speeds.

All of the WD Green drives (just about the slowest consumer drives you could purchase) are 5400 RPM and all are listed as having an average read/write of over 110MB/sec, which is fine for USB 3.0. The interface is, of course, either SATA-II or SATA-III, which support 3.0GB/s and 6.0GB/s, respectively, which is more than adequate as well.

I don't think I've seen a modern drive that goes lower than 100MB/sec, so for USB 3.0 you should be utilizing the bulk of that interface (or, thinking about it another way, the USB 3.0 interface shouldn't be your bottleneck, unlike USB 2.0, on an external HDD.)

Quote from imabored : Would being a refrub. Affect the rebate? Never submitted a rebate for a refrub item before.

The rebate is listed on the page, so I'd assume the rebate is valid otherwise that'd be pretty shady. Yeah, I know, assumptions...

Quote from Tytalus : I don't like using refurbished units for long-term storage. That said, data at rest that isn't accessed often should last a long time even on a mechanical drive (regardless of refurbished or not.) Since you want to write once/twice (i.e. using it for games/applications) and read a lot (reading textures in games, or various data for applications) I can't see there being a significant issue, but it's a bit more use-heavy than I'd prefer for a refurbished drive. A simple test to determine if you're going to be ok purchasing a refurbished drive: if you lost all this data in 6-12 months due to a motor failure on the HDD that you couldn't fix, would you have lost anything significant that wouldn't be replaceable? If the answer is "Nope, I have backups of all critical stuff, and all important photos" then this or the 2.5GB drive is a good choice. All of the WD Green drives (just about the slowest consumer drives you could purchase) are 5400 RPM and all are listed as having an average read/write of over 110MB/sec, which is fine for USB 3.0. The interface is, of course, either SATA-II or SATA-III, which support 3.0GB/s and 6.0GB/s, respectively, which is more than adequate as well. I don't think I've seen a modern drive that goes lower than 100MB/sec, so for USB 3.0 you should be utilizing the bulk of that interface (or, thinking about it another way, the USB 3.0 interface shouldn't be your bottleneck, unlike USB 2.0, on an external HDD.) The rebate is listed on the page, so I'd assume the rebate is valid otherwise that'd be pretty shady. Yeah, I know, assumptions...

Thanks for the very in depth answer rep'ed