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expired Posted by BF_ • Aug 9, 2024
expired Posted by BF_ • Aug 9, 2024

12TB HGST Ultrastar DC HC520 SATA 6GB 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise HDD (Refurbished)

+ Free Shipping

$74

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Deal Details
goHardDrive Wholesale and Retail via eBay has 12TB HGST Ultrastar DC HC520 SATA 6GB 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise HDD (HUH721212ALE601, Refurbished: Excellent) on sale for $74. Shipping is free.

Thanks Community Member BF_ for sharing this deal.

About Refurbished Condition:
  • These HDD is used by Datacenter Servers for about 5 years. HDD was refurbished and data wiped with DoD Standard.
  • It's fully tested & passed HGST factory diagnose software test with ZERO Bad sectors.
  • Since this is a heavy duty enterprise HDD with 2.5M-hour MTBF rating.
Notable Specs:
  • Previously known as Ultrastar He12 Series
  • 3.5" Form Factor
  • SATA 6Gb/s Interface
  • 256MB Cache
  • 7.2K RPM Spindle Speed

Editor's Notes

Written by citan359 | Staff
  • About this deal:
    • Includes 5-Year Warranty from Seller + 1-Year Allstate Warranty
  • About this store:
    • 30 days returns. Seller pays for return shipping.
    • Seller goHardDrive Wholesale and Retail has a 99.8% positive feedback rating w/ over 507K items sold.

Original Post

Written by BF_
Community Notes
About the Poster
Deal Details
Community Notes
About the Poster
goHardDrive Wholesale and Retail via eBay has 12TB HGST Ultrastar DC HC520 SATA 6GB 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise HDD (HUH721212ALE601, Refurbished: Excellent) on sale for $74. Shipping is free.

Thanks Community Member BF_ for sharing this deal.

About Refurbished Condition:
  • These HDD is used by Datacenter Servers for about 5 years. HDD was refurbished and data wiped with DoD Standard.
  • It's fully tested & passed HGST factory diagnose software test with ZERO Bad sectors.
  • Since this is a heavy duty enterprise HDD with 2.5M-hour MTBF rating.
Notable Specs:
  • Previously known as Ultrastar He12 Series
  • 3.5" Form Factor
  • SATA 6Gb/s Interface
  • 256MB Cache
  • 7.2K RPM Spindle Speed

Editor's Notes

Written by citan359 | Staff
  • About this deal:
    • Includes 5-Year Warranty from Seller + 1-Year Allstate Warranty
  • About this store:
    • 30 days returns. Seller pays for return shipping.
    • Seller goHardDrive Wholesale and Retail has a 99.8% positive feedback rating w/ over 507K items sold.

Original Post

Written by BF_

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Top Comments

lastwraith
1791 Posts
552 Reputation
You don't need to have any faith, there is no refurbishing that goes on. They blank the drives, some sellers blank the stats, and then they resell them. No 3rd party is opening up drives to do any true refurbishing.
You are simply buying used drives....... which is fine, I don't trust anyone to open a helium drive anyway.
steltek
194 Posts
64 Reputation
4 years is nothing for enterprise drives, especially since they probably spent most of that 4 years continuously powered on (power cycles cause more damage to spinning rust than anything else). The manufacturer MTBF on these drives is 2.5 million hours, or approximately 385 years. I promise you, even after having been used for 4 years, they are probably more reliable than any brand new consumer drive you can buy today.


WD usually resells most of its recertified enterprise drives through resellers who then provide the warranty (and charge significantly more than $75). At least this seller offers a 5 year warranty which they have a good reputation for honoring.


I'm considering purchasing 3-5 of them myself for use in building a new NAS/Proxmox box.
ilikebike
1049 Posts
810 Reputation
It's a special alloy, same kind of stuff that used in satellites and keeps freon in refrigerants.

WD put out a cool blog post a couple years ago on the development of helium filled drives. They've been in development for 30+ years.

https://blog.westerndigital.com/r...al-helium/

64 Comments

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Aug 9, 2024
83 Posts
Joined Jan 2020
Aug 9, 2024
LovelyMint163
Aug 9, 2024
83 Posts
I got the push notification from ebay and bought two. I've had bad drives from this seller but they made it right immediately with no hassle.
Aug 9, 2024
10 Posts
Joined Apr 2013
Aug 9, 2024
MikeH7558
Aug 9, 2024
10 Posts
I bought two these drives. When they arrived, the SMART uptime indicated nearly 4 years of use.
This is to be expected from a refurbished hard drive.

Once they arrived, I formatted the drives (it took 36 hours per drive) and then pounded on the drives for two days. Both drives survived and I'm using them as not my primary or secondary, but my third level backup drive. It has been two months and other than being loud, the drives are working fine.

You should know you can buy refurbished drives from Western Digital. I would have more faith in Western Digital refurbishing a drive than a seller on eBay.

With all this said, I'd consider buying these drives again but not in a mission-critical situation.
5
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Aug 10, 2024
1,791 Posts
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Aug 10, 2024
lastwraith
Pro
Aug 10, 2024
1,791 Posts

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

Quote from MikeH7558 :
I bought two these drives. When they arrived, the SMART uptime indicated nearly 4 years of use.
This is to be expected from a refurbished hard drive.

Once they arrived, I formatted the drives (it took 36 hours per drive) and then pounded on the drives for two days. Both drives survived and I'm using them as not my primary or secondary, but my third level backup drive. It has been two months and other than being loud, the drives are working fine.

You should know you can buy refurbished drives from Western Digital. I would have more faith in Western Digital refurbishing a drive than a seller on eBay.

With all this said, I'd consider buying these drives again but not in a mission-critical situation.
You don't need to have any faith, there is no refurbishing that goes on. They blank the drives, some sellers blank the stats, and then they resell them. No 3rd party is opening up drives to do any true refurbishing.
You are simply buying used drives....... which is fine, I don't trust anyone to open a helium drive anyway.
5
Aug 10, 2024
194 Posts
Joined Dec 2007
Aug 10, 2024
steltek
Aug 10, 2024
194 Posts

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

Quote from MikeH7558 :
I bought two these drives. When they arrived, the SMART uptime indicated nearly 4 years of use.
This is to be expected from a refurbished hard drive.

Once they arrived, I formatted the drives (it took 36 hours per drive) and then pounded on the drives for two days. Both drives survived and I'm using them as not my primary or secondary, but my third level backup drive. It has been two months and other than being loud, the drives are working fine.

You should know you can buy refurbished drives from Western Digital. I would have more faith in Western Digital refurbishing a drive than a seller on eBay.

With all this said, I'd consider buying these drives again but not in a mission-critical situation.

4 years is nothing for enterprise drives, especially since they probably spent most of that 4 years continuously powered on (power cycles cause more damage to spinning rust than anything else). The manufacturer MTBF on these drives is 2.5 million hours, or approximately 385 years. I promise you, even after having been used for 4 years, they are probably more reliable than any brand new consumer drive you can buy today.


WD usually resells most of its recertified enterprise drives through resellers who then provide the warranty (and charge significantly more than $75). At least this seller offers a 5 year warranty which they have a good reputation for honoring.


I'm considering purchasing 3-5 of them myself for use in building a new NAS/Proxmox box.
4
Aug 10, 2024
1,375 Posts
Joined Dec 2017
Aug 10, 2024
lolopolo
Aug 10, 2024
1,375 Posts
Quote from steltek :
4 years is nothing for enterprise drives, especially since they probably spent most of that 4 years continuously powered on (power cycles cause more damage to spinning rust than anything else). The manufacturer MTBF on these drives is 2.5 million hours, or approximately 385 years. I promise you, even after having been used for 4 years, they are probably more reliable than any brand new consumer drive you can buy today.


WD usually resells most of its recertified enterprise drives through resellers who then provide the warranty (and charge significantly more than $75). At least this seller offers a 5 year warranty which they have a good reputation for honoring.


I'm considering purchasing 3-5 of them myself for use in building a new NAS/Proxmox box.
How do they manage to keep helium inside for so long? If I remember physics correctly, helium can leak even through metal
Aug 10, 2024
1,394 Posts
Joined Nov 2007

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Aug 10, 2024
158 Posts
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Aug 10, 2024
ThatTallGuy21
Aug 10, 2024
158 Posts
Anyone know if Goharddrive or ServerPartDeals ever sell 14TB drives at discount like this?

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Aug 10, 2024
241 Posts
Joined Feb 2019
Aug 10, 2024
MyndFX
Aug 10, 2024
241 Posts
Quote from ThatTallGuy21 :
Anyone know if Goharddrive or ServerPartDeals ever sell 14TB drives at discount like this?
Yes, I've bought them for $100 through Go Hard Drive on Ebay.
Aug 10, 2024
172 Posts
Joined Nov 2015
Aug 10, 2024
gluesniffined
Aug 10, 2024
172 Posts

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

Not a comment on these specific drives, but on the brand itself. I have several older (non-helium) HGST Ultrastar enterprise drives in my NAS that I bought new a LONG time ago. They are all around 78k powered on hours with zero block errors or defects at all. Over the past decade, they have been moved between 3 different NAS devices, as I have upgraded my hardware.
1
Aug 10, 2024
9,271 Posts
Joined May 2015
Aug 10, 2024
texst
Aug 10, 2024
9,271 Posts
Is helium good or bad?
Original Poster
Pro
Aug 10, 2024
948 Posts
Joined Sep 2020
Aug 10, 2024
BF_
Original Poster
Pro
Aug 10, 2024
948 Posts
Quote from ThatTallGuy21 :
Anyone know if Goharddrive or ServerPartDeals ever sell 14TB drives at discount like this?
They currently have a WDC 14TB for $115 and was previously $100 before but even on a per TB works out to $7/TB at $100 when on sale vs $6/TB on this 12TB deal.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/155672990441
Last edited by BF_ August 10, 2024 at 11:20 AM.
1
Aug 10, 2024
1,390 Posts
Joined Dec 2009
Aug 10, 2024
dealmeister3000
Aug 10, 2024
1,390 Posts
Quote from texst :
Is helium good or bad?
It's noble.

Aren't all drives made in the last few years above a certain capacity helium filled?
5
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Aug 10, 2024
1,791 Posts
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Aug 10, 2024
lastwraith
Pro
Aug 10, 2024
1,791 Posts
Quote from dealmeister3000 :
It's noble.

Aren't all drives made in the last few years above a certain capacity helium filled?
Basically, yes. It's not easy to find an air drive over about 14tb. Or at least, I don't know of any.
Pro
Aug 10, 2024
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lastwraith
Pro
Aug 10, 2024
1,791 Posts
Quote from texst :
Is helium good or bad?
Time will ultimately tell, but so far helium is a good thing. Lower resistance which means cooler drives that are quiet and fast.

And they've been around long enough that you should buy with confidence. Besides that, and as someone else mentioned, helium is essentially your only option above 12-14TB or so.

FWIW, there are a few anecdotal reports of helium drives where even after a leak, they still managed to soldier on long enough to get the data off even though they were essentially running on air.
Last edited by lastwraith August 10, 2024 at 12:33 PM.

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Original Poster
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Aug 10, 2024
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Aug 10, 2024
BF_
Original Poster
Pro
Aug 10, 2024
948 Posts
Quote from lolopolo :
How do they manage to keep helium inside for so long? If I remember physics correctly, helium can leak even through metal
Good point but how many years do most people buying these large drives keep data on them before transferring to another even larger size? Or no longer need the data on it due to format changes? HDD sizes keep increasing or getting faster and we simply migrate that data don't we? So long as it last long enough for the next upgrade, that's usually the reality.

I mean, we got 80GB, 500GB and 1TB lying around that we haven't accessed in years b/c we simply transferred it to another larger or fast drive later on,

Drives these size are usually for video storage and when we go from 1080p, to 4k and 8k, we'll stop watching on the older format and replace it with a higher resolution on a bigger capacity drive, right?
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