Refurbished: 18TB WD Ultrastar DC HC550 SATA 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise Hard Drive

DerProfi

Jun 30, 2025 12:13 AM

1.6K Comments

Joined Oct 2005

DerProfiJun 30, 2025 12:13 AM

1.6K Comments

I will forever be emotionally scarred from the see-saw of emotions caused by going from $73 for a 12TB HC520 to $200 for an 18GB HC550.

9

kpb321

Jun 30, 2025 12:25 AM

1K Comments

Joined Oct 2017

kpb321Jun 30, 2025 12:25 AM

1K Comments

Quote from afrugalfather

:

I'd like to go back to buying $80 12tb drives from them too, but sadly the past is the past.

For once I think I managed to hit one of the best of not the best deals available. Got 3x 12tb drives for ~$200 total or about ~$67 each. The drives were $74 each and managed to apply a 10% of refurb ebay coupon. Ordered end of last September so seems to fit what CMarshall85 posted.

6

awdrifter

Jun 30, 2025 1:03 AM

381 Comments

Joined Jul 2007

awdrifterJun 30, 2025 1:03 AM

381 Comments

These are usually drives used in data centers for 5+ years, they are retired because they are close to the end of their design life. The only refurbishing these sellers do is wiping the data on the drive and the maybe also wipe the SMART data.

5

2

tCLOCK

Jun 30, 2025 1:10 AM

980 Comments

Joined Nov 2013

tCLOCKJun 30, 2025 1:10 AM

980 Comments

Quote from awdrifter

:

These are usually drives used in data centers for 5+ years, they are retired because they are close to the end of their design life. The only refurbishing these sellers do is wiping the data on the drive and the maybe also wipe the SMART data.

.....and? I think we are all aware of that.

9

3

odie5533

Jun 30, 2025 1:24 AM

2K Comments

Joined Aug 2003

odie5533Jun 30, 2025 1:24 AM

2K Comments

These server drives run loud and hot. Recommend you not be in the same room as one since they're loud. Need a fan if run in an external enclosure.

I run one in my basement inside this enclosure https://www.amazon.com/FIDECO-Ext...0BXDRJV7R/

Rumzie

Jun 30, 2025 2:21 AM

103 Comments

Joined Aug 2016

RumzieJun 30, 2025 2:21 AM

103 Comments

I love these drives and have used them exclusively in my servers for years without issue, but the combination of being refurbs AND from eBay is a dealbreaker (unless they are run in mirrored pairs, or aren't holding crucial data).

2

FMcamaroZ28

Jun 30, 2025 2:23 AM

1K Comments

Joined Oct 2003

FMcamaroZ28Jun 30, 2025 2:23 AM

1K Comments

With the MTBF of 2.5 million hours, some would argue they are not even close to the end of their design life.

1

Lephatu

Jun 30, 2025 2:36 AM

63 Comments

Joined Jan 2012

LephatuJun 30, 2025 2:36 AM

63 Comments

I wanted to buy more than 6. Has anyone tried making multiple purchases?

zba

Jun 30, 2025 2:54 AM

254 Comments

Joined Jul 2005

zbaJun 30, 2025 2:54 AM

254 Comments

Quote from FMcamaroZ28

:

With the MTBF of 2.5 million hours, some would argue they are not even close to the end of their design life.

This is not true. Bought 12 TB from them. Just died after 4 m of light use. I am not going to send it back with all my personal data. I thought that they are more reliable.Frankly it looks it is not a bargain

1

t99

Jun 30, 2025 3:01 AM

474 Comments

Joined Apr 2021

t99Jun 30, 2025 3:01 AM

474 Comments

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

Quote from zba

:

This is not true. Bought 12 TB from them. Just died after 4 m of light use. I am not going to send it back with all my personal data. I thought that they are more reliable.Frankly it looks it is not a bargain

Server parts deals is more reliable because they actually test each drive extensively before shipping (they show their process on YouTube), but they are also more expensive. Goharddrive I guess decided on a different business model, they don't bother testing their drives properly but instead offer a longer 5 year warranty with a painless return process.

5

3

nsls2061

Jun 30, 2025 3:15 AM

259 Comments

Joined Mar 2012

nsls2061Jun 30, 2025 3:15 AM

259 Comments

Weren't these made by Hitachi before? Is the quality still as good?

makkonen

Jun 30, 2025 4:30 AM

16 Comments

Joined Jun 2009

makkonenJun 30, 2025 4:30 AM

16 Comments

I had a 12tb from goharddrive purchased last year when they were cheap. It recently started failing. I tried to take advantage of the warranty and they claimed they were out of stock, so they would refund my original purchase price. When prices are going down, that's a great option. But at the moment, it feels pretty terrible for my 12tb hard drive to fail and to have to pay an extra ~$70 on top of my refund for a like-kind replacement. (I bought a couple 20tb replacements from a different seller on Amazon instead. Might as well upgrade the mirrored pair since 12tb is no longer nearly as good as a value.)

2

WittyDime1668

Jun 30, 2025 5:03 AM

20 Comments

Joined Nov 2019

WittyDime1668Jun 30, 2025 5:03 AM

20 Comments

Quote from zba

:

This is not true. Bought 12 TB from them. Just died after 4 m of light use. I am not going to send it back with all my personal data. I thought that they are more reliable.Frankly it looks it is not a bargain

I had a similar situation with one of their drives dying a few months after purchase on eBay. It was a no warning, click of death scenario, and while it was backups of data, there was still some un-encrypted personal data on there. At the time, they offered me a partial refund for the failure and I kept the drive. I ended up buying 2 more drives from them as replacements. I was happy to see one of them the sent me had only 10K hours on it. The others I had received were around 30-35K hours. All running well at the moment about 9 months later and no bad sectors.

Back in 2017 I bought 5 refurbished Hitachi Ultrastar 3TB drives for $48 each on eBay. I still have all 5 running for backup storage. All of them are currently over 75K hours now. Just did full sector scans last week and all are still at 100%!

1

Pinako

Jun 30, 2025 5:32 AM

885 Comments

Joined Nov 2013

PinakoJun 30, 2025 5:32 AM

885 Comments

Quote from t99

:

Server parts deals is more reliable because they actually test each drive extensively before shipping (they show their process on YouTube), but they are also more expensive. Goharddrive I guess decided on a different business model, they don't bother testing their drives properly but instead offer a longer 5 year warranty with a painless return process.

Interesting. The longer warranty wins my vote. Anything I want to keep gets stored redundantly with encryption anyway, so I'm essentially buying 5+ years of storage. I have several 14 TB WD Ultrastars from the previous goHDD deal, and fortunately have not had to make a warranty claim yet.

1

charlesp2000

Jun 30, 2025 9:52 AM

1.2K Comments

Joined Oct 2014

charlesp2000Jun 30, 2025 9:52 AM

1.2K Comments

Quote from Pinako

:

Interesting. The longer warranty wins my vote. Anything I want to keep gets stored redundantly with encryption anyway, so I'm essentially buying 5+ years of storage. I have several 14 TB WD Ultrastars from the previous goHDD deal, and fortunately have not had to make a warranty claim yet.

who do you use to encrypt? open source stuff or what?

1

Refurbished: 18TB WD Ultrastar DC HC550 SATA 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise Hard Drive

$200

$400

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