goHardDrive Wholesale and Retail via eBay has
12TB HGST Ultrastar DC HC520 SATA 6GB 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise HDD Hard Drive (HUH721212ALE601, Refurbished: Excellent) on sale for
$72.99.
Shipping is free.
Thanks Community Member
buduz0r for finding this deal.
Seller Note About Refurbished Condition:
- "These HDD is used by Datacenter Servers for about 5 years period. 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:
- 3.5" Form Factor
- SATA 6Gb/s Interface
- 256MB Cache
- 7.2K RPM Spindle Speed
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Not judging either method, just wondering.
I run WD Data Lifeguard or Victoria verification tests on the whole drive before putting these into anything because they just box them and ship them out.
Goharddrive is fine, this is just the nature of the beast with almost any "refurb" stuff you buy.
If it passes initial stress tests, you're probably good though.
I run WD Data Lifeguard or Victoria verification tests on the whole drive before putting these into anything because they just box them and ship them out.
Goharddrive is fine, this is just the nature of the beast with almost any "refurb" stuff you buy.
If it passes initial stress tests, you're probably good though.
im going to try the freezer.
You said your drive is experiencing the click of death. Is this when it's powering up (failing to calibrate and reach a ready state) or after it's been running (resulting in read errors)? How do you have it connected (internally, via USB, etc.)?
Slower speeds generally mean less noise, power, and performance, but for write-once/read-many applications where the drive is already plenty fast enough, especially as data density increases and leads to faster throughput.... that's totally fine.
I think a lot of people who just serve media would choose the lower RPM drives if they were able to make a choice.
But that's not a thing so whatever. I just want to put a stop to all the people posting about modern large 5400rpm drives, because someone will believe they exist and that just complicates the current landscape needlessly. You have no choices regarding that specification anymore.
Power usage and heat output are valid concerns, but as I mentioned before, I'm not convinced a 5400RPM drive would make as big a difference as many think.
I do wonder how much the performance difference would be. While you're somewhat right about increased data density leading to higher throughput, increases in throughput haven't even remotely kept up proportionally with increases in drive capacity. A modern 20TB Ultrastar/Exos only has about 3x the sequential throughput of my very old 1TB WD Black. A single read/write pass on these modern drives can take roughly 12-24 hours. That said, you're right, most home users are using them for very light applications.
I take slight issue with your write-once/read-many comment. Whether you're reading or writing doesn't matter much. Unlike most SSDs, hard drives (at least CMR ones) are usually at least as good at writing as reading. Actually, random writes can often often outperform random reads, due to caching.
So yeah, it would be nice if large 5400RPM drives were an option, but I don't think it would benefit the average person as much as they think. I do agree that we need to dispel people of the idea that there are large 5400RPM drives. WD certainly hasn't helped the issue by calling some 7200RPM drives "5400RPM class."
You said your drive is experiencing the click of death. Is this when it's powering up (failing to calibrate and reach a ready state) or after it's been running (resulting in read errors)? How do you have it connected (internally, via USB, etc.)?
While I don't disagree with your premise, I'm not convinced there would be a meaningful difference for most people. A slower spindle speed only means less motor noise, which is rarely an issue these days. Modern FDB motors are very quiet, even at 7200RPM. Most people complaining about noise are referring to the sound produced by the heads seeking. That is a separate issue from spindle speed. A 7200RPM drive with slower seeks can be quite quiet. I really hate that AAM (a feature that allowed the user to adjust seek speed/noise) is no longer supported.
Power usage and heat output are valid concerns, but as I mentioned before, I'm not convinced a 5400RPM drive would make as big a difference as many think.
I do wonder how much the performance difference would be. While you're somewhat right about increased data density leading to higher throughput, increases in throughput haven't even remotely kept up proportionally with increases in drive capacity. A modern 20TB Ultrastar/Exos only has about 3x the sequential throughput of my very old 1TB WD Black. A single read/write pass on these modern drives can take roughly 12-24 hours. That said, you're right, most home users are using them for very light applications.
I take slight issue with your write-once/read-many comment. Whether you're reading or writing doesn't matter much. Unlike most SSDs, hard drives (at least CMR ones) are usually at least as good at writing as reading. Actually, random writes can often often outperform random reads, due to caching.
So yeah, it would be nice if large 5400RPM drives were an option, but I don't think it would benefit the average person as much as they think. I do agree that we need to dispel people of the idea that there are large 5400RPM drives. WD certainly hasn't helped the issue by calling some 7200RPM drives "5400RPM class."
Maybe not, it'd just be nice to have the choice. Especially for those who are shoving a bunch of these into places where they are just barely getting adequate airflow as it is.
I can't say I even have a huge issue with the noise from the WD enterprise drives, but I'm also making sure to use drive sleds with sound isolation, so YMMV I guess.
As for drive speeds..... they're pretty fast (for things that you would be using HDDs in the first place for) and if you have them in drive arrays you can very quickly run up against network bottlenecks, so I wouldn't say I have any actual complaints about transfer speeds on modern HDDs. Plus you can always do an SSD cache or workaround those limitations in other ways when planning your storage solution.
HDDs are mostly filling the cheap spacious storage niche right now, and I'm not sure many of us need 7200rpm drives to do that.
100% agree on the "5400rpm class" nonsense, I was thinking that particular marketing wasn't helping current consumers at all.
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If you're checking them elsewhere - badblocks in Linux or something like WD Data Lifeguard or Victoria on Windows.
But it could depend on your setup.
If, for example, this is 1 new drive being added to an array with non-critical data that already does drive integrity checks and has parity or some other failure-resistance.... Then some people will do a quick SMART and then just roll the dice.
I don't buy a ton of drives and would rather do an overnight thorough test right when I get it.
Then I can replace via warranty while all the info is fresh in my mind plus when I add it to my arrays I have some piece of mind that I did my due diligence.
But it could depend on your setup.
If, for example, this is 1 new drive being added to an array with non-critical data that already does drive integrity checks and has parity or some other failure-resistance.... Then some people will do a quick SMART and then just roll the dice.
Made a quick (30 seconds) video for people looking to remove the 3rd pin and not need to use the special adapter:
https://youtu.be/seHrK9kKQIo
I used to use kapton tape but a year down the road would remove a drive and forget it had the tape on which would then be peeled off by removing the sata power cable.
If you're checking them elsewhere - badblocks in Linux or something like WD Data Lifeguard or Victoria on Windows.
Edit: maybe smartctl long test on top?
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