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expiredDealiusCaesar | Staff posted Dec 14, 2022 07:50 PM
expiredDealiusCaesar | Staff posted Dec 14, 2022 07:50 PM

Western Digital Portable Hard Drives (Certified Refurb): 1TB My Passport

& More + Free S&H

$25

$50

50% off
eBay
149 Comments 74,762 Views
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Update: This popular deal is still available.

Western Digital via eBay has Select Portable Hard Drives (Various Colors, Certified Refurbished) on sale from $24.99. Shipping is free.

Thanks to Staff Member DealiusCaesar for finding this deal.

Note:
This item is Certified Refurbished. It has been professionally restored by a Western Digital approved vendor. Units are usually cosmetically indistinguishable from New products, however some may show signs of light use. Functionally, these units are equivalent to New. Certified Refurbished units will be shipped in a New Brown CR Box.

Available Deals:

Editor's Notes

Written by SubZero5 | Staff
  • About this deal:
    • This price is $25 less (50% savings) than the listed retail price.
  • About this product:
    • Two-year warranty included: Comprehensive warranty serviced by Allstate, US only. Learn more, including how your info is shared here.
  • About this store:
    • Seller Western Digital has 98% positive feedback with over 250,000 items sold.
    • You can view eBay's Return Policy here.
  • Additional Note:
    • Please refer to the Forum Thread for additional discussion regarding this deal.

Original Post

Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Update: This popular deal is still available.

Western Digital via eBay has Select Portable Hard Drives (Various Colors, Certified Refurbished) on sale from $24.99. Shipping is free.

Thanks to Staff Member DealiusCaesar for finding this deal.

Note:
This item is Certified Refurbished. It has been professionally restored by a Western Digital approved vendor. Units are usually cosmetically indistinguishable from New products, however some may show signs of light use. Functionally, these units are equivalent to New. Certified Refurbished units will be shipped in a New Brown CR Box.

Available Deals:

Editor's Notes

Written by SubZero5 | Staff
  • About this deal:
    • This price is $25 less (50% savings) than the listed retail price.
  • About this product:
    • Two-year warranty included: Comprehensive warranty serviced by Allstate, US only. Learn more, including how your info is shared here.
  • About this store:
    • Seller Western Digital has 98% positive feedback with over 250,000 items sold.
    • You can view eBay's Return Policy here.
  • Additional Note:
    • Please refer to the Forum Thread for additional discussion regarding this deal.

Original Post

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Top Comments

TroyJason
781 Posts
130 Reputation
Although I would normally agree with you - the majority of these hard drives have virtually zero use. Zero.

Western digital is under obligation from most retailers to take returns for any item that might be opened or damaged (box). Large retailers like Best Buy can't take the lawsuit risk for the potential of viruses or adult material that could be on opened items. The vast majority of returns happen because somebody doesn't know how to use the product.

Not because it was defective.

Refurbishing done by western digital is to ensure that the aforementioned risks are removed from the drive and it is in a like-new state.

Remember, nobody buys these as a single source of back up. These are designed to be used as cold storage as just one option amongst many in a persons digital asset management strategy.

Cheers
mobile4kevin
743 Posts
484 Reputation
The most common problem with these besides user error is defective enclosure or DOA HDD. They replace the bad part and sell the unit as a refurb. If you run a drive test, you'll see there's little to no use on the drive itself.

The funniest reason for a return is something along the lines of:

"this 1TB drive only has ~950GB of free space"
itsjero
90 Posts
34 Reputation
First off I don't ever buy refurb hdds. Maybe this one would be different, and at an attractive price, something worth a look.

However I have been through 2 of these both boigh brand new in the 2 and 4tb varieties, white.

Both failed in about a year and a half. Both were used for an Xbox one x as an extended space drive for games.

Rma is a joke and the drives came back but ultimately failed again in about the same time.

It's a bummer too because every other single western digital normal PC 3.5 HDD, from 1tb to 8tb, all are still alive and working. I still even have 2 74gb western digital "raptors" which at the time were the fastest hard drives you could buy on the market (ata/sata.. scsi was obviously much faster but you need an expensive scsi card as well that made a scsi setup very expensive).

I still have a 4x1tb western digital "myspace" 4 bay Nas that has it's original 1tb green drives. I have. 4 bay nv+ Nas with 4x2tb wd black drives. They all work too. Several drives in my PC that range from 1-8tb and all of those work.

Every single western digital product I have bought has never ever failed, and some are 10 years old and still work flawlessly

All except these passport drives. If they had the reliability of the bigger normal wd blue/green/black drives I'd prolly snap one up just because.

But out of all the WD products I've ever owned, the only two that have ever failed are these passport drives. And using them for Xbox one x additional storage wasn't tasking. Heck it was prolly less taxing on the drive than any other WD drive I use. Yet they failed. Just one day disappeared from the Xbox system, I tried connecting to a PC and it wouldn't even detect it. For RMA you print out a paper you tape to the box to return it, all on your dime.

And it took about 6 weeks or so for each drive to get back to me and those failed in almost exactly the same amount of time as the drive itself originally failed new.

Soaybe I just got the bad draws here, but I avoid these specific wd products like the plague.

Really a downer too as it's a one cable drive thats small fast and light. Uses on cable for both power and transfer and for the drive it's quick enough for storage that I needed it for. They also came in like 10 colors and I think even a few special metal colors or metal cases (red, white, orange, blue, black, grey, green, gold, silver, and so on).

Wd struck out with me on these so I'd suggest caution on these and keep your box and receipt and paperwork in case you, like me, have drives that die after about a year and some change.

149 Comments

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Dec 15, 2022 01:24 PM
2,948 Posts
Joined Dec 2012
fuzzyballzDec 15, 2022 01:24 PM
2,948 Posts
I had great success last time on this deal. The refurb is literally brand new with zero hours used. I wish they have 4TB ones though. Guess I'll have to get a couple of 2TBs.
Dec 15, 2022 02:10 PM
20 Posts
Joined Feb 2009
love_caryDec 15, 2022 02:10 PM
20 Posts
Nice price!
1
Dec 15, 2022 02:35 PM
56 Posts
Joined Feb 2016
ChrisD7489Dec 15, 2022 02:35 PM
56 Posts

Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank ChrisD7489

Quote from rachleff :
most bargin hunters won't realize the risk and may end up in data loss relying on these things.
Sounds like shitty data practice. Nothing you care about should ever be on one single drive. reliability essentially doesn't matter because you should ALWAYS back up everything you're not prepared to lose.

people spend $100 on higher end "reliable" drives, or think they're smart because they avoided some Seagate that people online said is unreliable and then come crying when they lose irreplaceable data because they relied on it. buy the cheapest drive you can get away with, and buy multiple of them. Ive been using used, like decade old Hitachi server drives from eBay for years to store my videography stuff and they've been just fine. but more importantly, their reliability is completely meaningless to me because I have two copies of the stuff I actually care about.
Last edited by ChrisD7489 December 15, 2022 at 06:39 AM.
1
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Dec 15, 2022 03:53 PM
60 Posts
Joined Sep 2017

This comment has been rated as unhelpful by Slickdeals users.

Dec 15, 2022 03:56 PM
523 Posts
Joined Sep 2009
passat25Dec 15, 2022 03:56 PM
523 Posts
People acting like folks are gonna use these external drives to store state secrets.. Most people here are buying these to store games, mainly PORN!
1
Dec 15, 2022 04:24 PM
188 Posts
Joined Dec 2011
inser1Dec 15, 2022 04:24 PM
188 Posts
Quote from hsingh10 :
Yes to store ps4 games. This will not store PS5 games. This will free up space from your internal SSD drive if you have a lot of PS4 games loaded.
Can also be used as warm storage for PS5 games which is not the same thing as expanding via nvme, but still faster than redownloading games every time.
Dec 15, 2022 05:35 PM
3,541 Posts
Joined Dec 2008
missellieDec 15, 2022 05:35 PM
3,541 Posts
Bought the 2TB Passport Ultra from a previous SD in August for $35.99. So far, so good. Came with a 2 year warranty.

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Dec 15, 2022 06:00 PM
162 Posts
Joined Apr 2012
GethomeDec 15, 2022 06:00 PM
162 Posts
Quote from BIG4 :
Thanks OP, pulled trigger on 2T @$30, $5 saving from my eBay following list
Can you explain how others can get a $5 saving from an eBay following list?
Dec 15, 2022 06:18 PM
1,770 Posts
Joined Dec 2013
ryand7651Dec 15, 2022 06:18 PM
1,770 Posts
Sooo the ps4 $30 one is for storing games to transfer them over to your playstation's ssd when you want to play them instead of redownloading? I'm other words, it can't play games off of this hard drive?
Dec 15, 2022 06:33 PM
2,001 Posts
Joined May 2004
ECarlsonDec 15, 2022 06:33 PM
2,001 Posts
Darn. I already have the 2TB yellow, and I have a couple other black drives. I wanted a few other colors, so I can tell them apart at a glance.
Dec 15, 2022 06:51 PM
205 Posts
Joined Jan 2011
bdoubyaDec 15, 2022 06:51 PM
205 Posts
Quote from Mutantchipmunk :
These drives are like new. I first bought one about 5 years ago for my ps4 and now I use it with my ps5 and still no issues. Bought another one for my Xbox one s and moved it to my Series X. Bought 2 more for pc storage needs, and another for my Series S. Crystal disk always showed real low hours and everything passed.
There's conflicting messages here in the thread. Some say "Not intended for extended use" but you've said these are okay. Can anyone else weigh in on this for an XB1 or PS4 extended storage?
Dec 15, 2022 07:19 PM
2,372 Posts
Joined Oct 2011
MWinkDec 15, 2022 07:19 PM
2,372 Posts
Quote from CosbysQuaaludes :
I bought one of these the last sale around. Shake it and it rattles lol. Just the control arm? I filled it to the brim with *personal use media* and it seems everything is intact and still rattles. No bad or reallocated sectors tho. Normal?
Depends on the drive. There are some drives that rattle, even when shaken gently. I've even seen one with a note on the label about it being normal. If it's working and there's nothing concerning in the SMART attributes, I wouldn't worry too much. Just don't EVER store important data in only one place.

Quote from BlueRaccoon1085 :
I think WD erases the hard drive information and puts it in a brand new enclosure so you would think it is new and be less likely to return it.

Mine brought 0 hours when I bought it earlier this year, similarly with other posters.
Yeah, people think this means the drive is new. It could be but usually isn't. Manufacturers usually wipe the SMART data. Some people consider this nefarious. I don't think it inherently is but I'm definitely not a fan of the practice.

Quote from BlueRaccoon1085 :
You can always use a program like HDDScan or Victoria to see if it has errors and likely to fail. A good drive should bring back zero errors.

https://hddscan.com
https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/de...ndows.html
I'll endorse HDDScan. It's the best thing I've tried that runs on Windows. Now I just need to find something comparable that runs on Linux (badblocks is not).
Dec 15, 2022 07:27 PM
2,948 Posts
Joined Dec 2012
fuzzyballzDec 15, 2022 07:27 PM
2,948 Posts
Turns out they do have 4TB refurb for $60. Perfect for backing up my amateur videos.
Dec 15, 2022 07:39 PM
8 Posts
Joined Jan 2018
WittyCable6959Dec 15, 2022 07:39 PM
8 Posts
Could I use this for active gaming storage?
1

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Dec 15, 2022 07:51 PM
591 Posts
Joined Jan 2006
smileyspeopleDec 15, 2022 07:51 PM
591 Posts
Going to use as a 2nd Time Capsule for my Macbook Pro. Any good free drive diagnostic programs for Mac (other than Disk Utility)?
1

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