WD Hard Drives (Refurb): 3TB Western Digital My Book External Desktop
$50
$89.99
+ Free Shipping
+93Deal Score
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Update: This popular deal is still available.
Western Digital via eBay has select Certified Refurbished Western Digital Drives on sale below. Shipping is free.
Thanks to Deal Hunter itsamazeling for posting this deal.
Note: These drives also include a 2-Year Allstate Warranty (more info). You may save an additional $15 Off your purchase when you buy 3 or more qualifying items.
Last Edited by deelseaker
June 23, 2022
at
05:06 AM
These drives qualify for the EXTRA $15 OFF 3+ ITEMS promotion. You can mix and match them to meet the quantity requirement.
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For archival purposes, SMR is fine. Write once, then read mostly. It's constant read/write cycles that kill SMR drives. For important, irreplaceable files like family memories, best to make at least 2 copies and store one copy off site at a different location. I would have no problem using 2 of these drives for my photos and videos, then in the unlikely event one of them fails you will still have the other to retrieve them.
I've purchased one of these refurb drives and I would not recommend it. I ended up getting a refund.
I purchased it knowing fully well that these were SMR drives, but I did not expect 1 MB/sec both read/write speeds. This was transferring and reading large media files.
Trash SMR drives make great plex drives
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I'm not sure "refurbished" drives can wholly be lumped into the customer return category, maybe not even largely. Having been in the event management business a number of years ago I had opportunity to see first hand the huge amount of electronics that are routinely loaned directly from the manufacturer to an event for the week/weekend. These were subsequently returned to sender for recertification and sale. For this reason I am less inclined to believe a drive I receive would be a questionable unit.
That said, all my external drives are for archival purpose and see minimal on-time therefore are not driven hard. Upon initial loading I make sure to keep a steady flow of cooling air through them if performing an initial dump of data. Currently have 14 external USB enclosure drives (WD & Seagate, 2TB-14TB, all full) that go back as far as 14 years and have yet to experience a failure. Full disclosure -- A couple of these drives are mirrored as they do contain content for which customers might return.
It can be. Mine from the last deal was a wd80efax from the EU market originally. But it is like playing lottery, you can get a red or white. Like Forest says, it is like a box of chocolate.
oh yeah, mine says it had been powered on 3 times and ran for 0 hours.
Free replacement mountain-climbing rope when it snaps halfway up your mountain climb!
8TB is a lot to lose. Wonder what the story is on these, customer returns? Why are so many returning 8TB drives?
That's what RAID and backups are for; refurbished or otherwise, you're never safe from a drive failure.
edit: I would suggest people to buy two of these and shuck them. I realized after the fact that many here would just buy as a standalone single drive backup (as WD intends, but I never think that way because I need and recommend data redundancy).
That's what RAID and backups are for; refurbished or otherwise, you're never safe from a drive failure.
edit: I would suggest people to buy two of these and shuck them. I realized after the fact that many here would just buy as a standalone single drive backup (as WD intends, but I never think that way because I need and recommend data redundancy).
Can you please explain RAID and backups? I'm a beginner and best I have done is clone the drive as a backup
Can you please explain RAID and backups? I'm a beginner and best I have done is clone the drive as a backup
You need to web search raid and NAS. (edit: because, big topic)
RAID is redundant array of inexpensive devices. It combines multiple disks to act as one logical disk. There are different levels of RAID, specified by number. The simplest one with redundancy is RAID 1. You can use as little as 2 drives. And they will both be written to when you store or update data. It is called mirroring, for obvious reasons. This comes with no performance benefit (which RAID 0, or striping, offers).
For anything other than boot drive, Bvckup 2 is amazing for real time backup sync. Relied on it for years, it's rock solid, lightweight, and very customizable. My drive gets synced with archiving every few hours, if the drive poops the bed then it's a copy and paste job onto a new drive and I'm good to go. Amazing peace of mind.
What's the physical set up on that?
2 external hard drives connected to the computer through an adapter on USB?
2 external hard drives connected to the computer through an adapter on USB?
Huh? It's just a PC with an external HD plugged in, like normal. No adapters or anything tricky. Internal syncs to the external. You can also sync to a network share if you prefer.
The best is to buy 2 hard drives and clone one every once in a while. You can buy a cloning device for about $20 and just pop them in and will clone quickly
thank you good tip.. Amy link to clone device you or anyone in know can recommend?
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I purchased it knowing fully well that these were SMR drives, but I did not expect 1 MB/sec both read/write speeds. This was transferring and reading large media files.
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That said, all my external drives are for archival purpose and see minimal on-time therefore are not driven hard. Upon initial loading I make sure to keep a steady flow of cooling air through them if performing an initial dump of data. Currently have 14 external USB enclosure drives (WD & Seagate, 2TB-14TB, all full) that go back as far as 14 years and have yet to experience a failure. Full disclosure -- A couple of these drives are mirrored as they do contain content for which customers might return.
It can be. Mine from the last deal was a wd80efax from the EU market originally. But it is like playing lottery, you can get a red or white. Like Forest says, it is like a box of chocolate.
oh yeah, mine says it had been powered on 3 times and ran for 0 hours.
8TB is a lot to lose. Wonder what the story is on these, customer returns? Why are so many returning 8TB drives?
That's what RAID and backups are for; refurbished or otherwise, you're never safe from a drive failure.
edit: I would suggest people to buy two of these and shuck them. I realized after the fact that many here would just buy as a standalone single drive backup (as WD intends, but I never think that way because I need and recommend data redundancy).
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edit: I would suggest people to buy two of these and shuck them. I realized after the fact that many here would just buy as a standalone single drive backup (as WD intends, but I never think that way because I need and recommend data redundancy).
Can you please explain RAID and backups? I'm a beginner and best I have done is clone the drive as a backup
You need to web search raid and NAS. (edit: because, big topic)
RAID is redundant array of inexpensive devices. It combines multiple disks to act as one logical disk. There are different levels of RAID, specified by number. The simplest one with redundancy is RAID 1. You can use as little as 2 drives. And they will both be written to when you store or update data. It is called mirroring, for obvious reasons. This comes with no performance benefit (which RAID 0, or striping, offers).
I'm hoping someday there are going to be 4TB WD blue air-based drives for $50 again, they once were for a day but I hesitated.
2 external hard drives connected to the computer through an adapter on USB?
2 external hard drives connected to the computer through an adapter on USB?
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