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expired Posted by tDames | Staff • Oct 24, 2023
expired Posted by tDames | Staff • Oct 24, 2023

18TB Dell Exos X18 SATA 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (Refurbished)

+ Free Shipping

$162

Server Part Deals
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Server Part Deals has 18TB Dell Exos X18 SATA Internal Hard Drive (Refurbished, ST18000NM002J) on sale for $159.99 -> Now $161.99. Shipping is free.

Thanks to Deal Hunter tDames for finding this deal.

Product Features:
  • Capacity: 18TB
  • Interface: SATA
  • Form Factor: 3.5 inch
  • Spindle Speed: 7.2K RPM
  • Condition: Seller Refurbished
  • Warranty: 2 Years

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Written by SlickDealio | Staff
  • About this deal:
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    • Server Part Deals Return Policay can be found here.

Original Post

Written by tDames | Staff
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Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
Server Part Deals has 18TB Dell Exos X18 SATA Internal Hard Drive (Refurbished, ST18000NM002J) on sale for $159.99 -> Now $161.99. Shipping is free.

Thanks to Deal Hunter tDames for finding this deal.

Product Features:
  • Capacity: 18TB
  • Interface: SATA
  • Form Factor: 3.5 inch
  • Spindle Speed: 7.2K RPM
  • Condition: Seller Refurbished
  • Warranty: 2 Years

Editor's Notes

Written by SlickDealio | Staff
  • About this deal:
  • About the store:
    • Server Part Deals Return Policay can be found here.

Original Post

Written by tDames | Staff

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Top Comments

This is a good price. However, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that in the hard drive world, "refurbished" is the same thing as "used", and none of the wear items in a refurbished hard drive will have been replaced. Typically the refurbisher will reset the hours rating in the SMART data, so there's no way to determine how much it's been used. However, if the original date of manufacture is more than 6 months or so old, then it's a good bet that it was installed and used significantly.

Also note that these are manufactured by Seagate.
FWIW, Backblaze has repeatedly compared consumer drives with enterprise drives for longevity, and has found little to no difference.
Once you start collecting data you have more desire/need to protect it. One layer of protection is RAID or a RAID-like parity system. Depending on how you set it up, if a disk or disk(s) fail your data is protected and your system is likely still running. Disk failure is the #1 cause for data loss.

Doubt anybody here is really discussing the deal because they want to put a 18TB game archive drive in their PC, though. We build storage systems for other reasons:

Juggling lots of different disks becomes a PITA. It's more convenient to set up a storage pool where you don't necessarily have to care about which drive holds the data. You can just worry about the pool as an entity itself.

There are downsides to "easy" cloud storage, like privacy concerns, keeping track of data in many different places, unknown how well your cloud storage providers back up your data, and cost.

If you had a backup in place, you'd probably be down for a really long time during the recovery process. For some people that's not acceptable.

Also, at some point higher density storage starts demanding a premium. So if you want to keep costs down and you have physical space, smaller drives might be a better solution. If you work in IT, you can often get hard drives for free when they get cycled out of production. Though relatively few of us work in places where 18TB drives are too small or too old for the business case.

There's also a skills component to consider. If you work in IT and want to upskill, you need a home lab to learn and practice with. Setting up and maintaining large storage systems is a good skill to have. And those systems can also be the foundation for other things like virtualization, containerization, new operating systems, disaster recovery, hybrid cloud, etc.

Those are most of the reasons you see folks here seeking out cheap, large drives. Probably 99% of households don't have a need for 18TB. If you're not in tech you really only accumulate that much if you are hording media files or you work in some kind of media production.

You might also be a solopreneur, I suppose. I have two laptops I consider critical in my house. I can roll back to the previous 7 days, I've got 3 weekly snapshopts beyond that, and 3 monthly snapshots further back. That backup strategy uses about 1TB per machine.

For all of these use cases, you're building storage on multiple drives. We can see a big cost savings by buying refurb and we can help mitigate the "risk" of used drives with these systems.

145 Comments

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Oct 24, 2023
5,217 Posts
Joined Dec 2009
Oct 24, 2023
swechsler
Oct 24, 2023
5,217 Posts

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This is a good price. However, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that in the hard drive world, "refurbished" is the same thing as "used", and none of the wear items in a refurbished hard drive will have been replaced. Typically the refurbisher will reset the hours rating in the SMART data, so there's no way to determine how much it's been used. However, if the original date of manufacture is more than 6 months or so old, then it's a good bet that it was installed and used significantly.

Also note that these are manufactured by Seagate.
16
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Oct 24, 2023
4,605 Posts
Joined Jun 2015
Oct 24, 2023
jtree1
Oct 24, 2023
4,605 Posts
How long can I realistically expect these to last?
Oct 24, 2023
5,217 Posts
Joined Dec 2009
Oct 24, 2023
swechsler
Oct 24, 2023
5,217 Posts

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Quote from jtree1 :
How long can I realistically expect these to last?
Well, it's a Seagate, so, three weeks?

I kid, but Seagate's reputation is not very good (although admittedly, the selection of hard drive manufacturers these days is pretty small).
2
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Oct 24, 2023
6,774 Posts
Joined Nov 2010
Oct 24, 2023
MusicShark
Oct 24, 2023
6,774 Posts
Quote from jtree1 :
How long can I realistically expect these to last?
it's enterprise drive. So it has much better quality than the garbage consumer drive.
But it was Refurbished.
1
Oct 24, 2023
481 Posts
Joined Jul 2012
Oct 24, 2023
im14abeer
Oct 24, 2023
481 Posts

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Quote from jtree1 :
How long can I realistically expect these to last?
No comment on longevity, but all these larger drives should really be in a raid array, doubly so for "refurnished" drives. Don't trust the only copy of your family photos to any hard drive, but especially don't trust the only copy of your family photos to a refurbished hard drive (of any brand) without mirroring or raid.
1
Oct 25, 2023
5,217 Posts
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Oct 25, 2023
swechsler
Oct 25, 2023
5,217 Posts

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Quote from MusicShark :
it's enterprise drive. So it has much better quality than the garbage consumer drive.
But it was Refurbished.
FWIW, Backblaze has repeatedly compared consumer drives with enterprise drives for longevity, and has found little to no difference.
5
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Oct 25, 2023
27,020 Posts
Joined Jun 2005

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Oct 25, 2023
1,717 Posts
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Oct 25, 2023
coolpal
Oct 25, 2023
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Quote from ionizer :
i dont know who buys refurbished drives, but the risk and cost of dealing with a dead drive never seems worth it to me over the semi-reduced price

like i expect if a 20tb Drive costs $300 new
the refurbished one needs to be like $40 before i would consider it
I had the same thought until recently as I was mostly using the drives without any redundancy. I think these make sense in a proper NAS with some level of protection for data loss from disc failures. I am currently building an Unraid server to replace an old linux server primarily doing the NAS and Plex duties and with Parity protection, I am inclined to go the refurb enterprise drive route. Especially if you get recently released models, they shouldn't have too much use out of them and SPD I hear is great with RMA and most of the drives (not this from OP) are 2 year warranty from manufacturer.

Anecdotally, I have primarily used WD drives for the last 10 years or so, all purchased new, and so far, I have had 4 disc failures all WD (2 blue, 1 green, 1 black). 1 Seagate and 1 Hitachi I also owned during this period are still going strong.

EDIT: btw, this disc has been the same price and has been in stock for over a month, however this is seller refurb and dell branded (diff firmware) vs exos x18 they also list which is manuf refurb, but $10 higher.
2
Oct 25, 2023
172 Posts
Joined Sep 2011
Oct 25, 2023
ninjamonke
Oct 25, 2023
172 Posts
Quote from jtree1 :
How long can I realistically expect these to last?
At the very least, two years because of the warranty.
1
Oct 25, 2023
2 Posts
Joined Apr 2018
Oct 25, 2023
BoastfulString994
Oct 25, 2023
2 Posts
Thanks OP, in for 5.
Oct 25, 2023
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Oct 25, 2023
edge929
Oct 25, 2023
915 Posts

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I used to steer clear of refurb drives until I realized the money savings were worth it when you run RAID. I can lose two of four drives and still have all my data intact. Additionally I have an offsite backup. With these mitigations, I'll gladly save $500 buying refurb drives.
1
1
Oct 25, 2023
7 Posts
Joined Nov 2015
Oct 25, 2023
thegood85
Oct 25, 2023
7 Posts
Exos X18 were introduced in 2020, so these drives will likely be 3 years old.
According to data collected in 2021 by Backblaze ( https://www.backblaze.com/blog/dr...s-leaking/ )
Quote :
In 2021, the life expectancy of a hard drive being alive at six years is 88%.
These are helium-filled, which is still unclear whether it will shorten life expectancy because of slow helium leaks, but I think it is safe to assume that these disks will last 3 more years
Oct 25, 2023
38 Posts
Joined Nov 2013
Oct 25, 2023
plax
Oct 25, 2023
38 Posts
Just a run a raid and get a couple of new ones for warranty
Oct 25, 2023
18,951 Posts
Joined Feb 2010
Oct 25, 2023
Binar
Oct 25, 2023
18,951 Posts
Raid 6 or Raid10 on 4 drives? Which one gives me more redundancy

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Oct 25, 2023
871 Posts
Joined Jul 2009
Oct 25, 2023
galewskj
Oct 25, 2023
871 Posts
The 2 year warranty is concerning to me. Why not wait for one of their drives that has a 5 year warranty?
1

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