12TB enterprise refurb drives, $89 at Amazon

Shmee

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manly

Lifer
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Good deal.

You'll probably get a 3 year warranty from goHardDrive, judging from their direct product link (currently out of stock 🤔) :


OK this listing explicitly says 5 year warranty! But MDD != HGST so not sure what to make of that.

 
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dlerious

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I've seen a few refurbished Enterprise drives on Amazon and Newegg. Prices looked ok, but I wanted new. Ended up paying almost $1200 for 4x16TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro drives (with taxes + shipping).
 

dlerious

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Good deal.

You'll probably get a 3 year warranty from goHardDrive, judging from their direct product link (currently out of stock 🤔) :


OK this listing explicitly says 5 year warranty! But MDD != HGST so not sure what to make of that.

Look at the label near the bottom and you'll see HGST Japan. MDD MAXDIGITALDATA is a trademark of goharddrive. They refurbish drives and slap their own label on.
 

manly

Lifer
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Look at the label near the bottom and you'll see HGST Japan. MDD MAXDIGITALDATA is a trademark of goharddrive. They refurbish drives and slap their own label on.
I realize that but it's a confusing product listing. MDD is their house brand, so usually they scrub the original OEM information. For example:


Online photos are no guarantee of what you'll get, especially since goHardDrive is a third party vendor on Amazon.

Refurbishment is also a salient point. For the HGST (or other original brand) drives, don't expect any actual refurbishing. These are used server pulls, with many years of continuous use. In this case, refurbishment means they've wiped the data and any dust on the exterior. Nothing was actually repaired.

In the context of the Amazon product I linked, it's impossible to tell whether you will receive an "MDD" or "HGST" labeled hard drive (the feature set can vary slightly). The main reason I referred to it is because it's $89 and explicitly states a 5 year warranty.
 

Shmee

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The drives I posted say HGST WD. They shouldn't be MDD, which I am not really trusting of.
 

manly

Lifer
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MDD is just goHardDrive's white label. It's the same vendor either way, although I can't say exactly whether that's better or worse than buying HGST from them.

Speaking of HGST, price is down to $85 on Newegg:

If there was a Zip promo at this time, I'd snag two. Heck you even get 90 day returns.
 
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Bitman

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Can anyone recommend a free NAS OS?
Depending on your skills and interest, maybe try plain Ubuntu (or your favorite plain Linux or BSD distro.)

Most free NAS distros are built from parts that are already part of the open source ecosystem, so plain OSes effectively give you access to every feature from every NAS distro out there, plus good standard access to the base system in case you need more power or something goes wrong.

You won't have their particular web UI, but there are lots of standalone web UIs available to add to your system.
 
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Shmee

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If you go with Truenas, I would probably go with Truenas Scale at this point, which is more updated/maintained, and is Debian based.
 
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manly

Lifer
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Newegg has a new Affirm BNPL promo for 10% off (max $100). It's supposed to apply to a LOT of products, but whoever set it up didn't seem to do it right. For example, CPUs and graphics cards are getting only $25 off.

It does apply to these HC510 drives, and likely applies to other stuff as well. If you're really motivated to get the maximum value out of this promo, you might want to contact Newegg CS and have them force the issue somehow. Unfortunately Newegg raised the price of the Ultrastar He12 from this thread, so I'll wait. goHardDrive has recently sold about 2000 of those drives on eBay lol.

 
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mindless1

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Keep in mind that (at least according to one of the reviews) these have 33K-39K hours so over 4 yrs wear on them. They will likely last long enough to exceed their as-new, cost:lifespan ratio by quite a bit, but "likely" is only playing odds and somebody has to fall on the wrong side of those odds eventually.
 

funboy6942

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bought 3, all got between 30-40K on them, and kinda a noisy drive compared to other hard drives I own, but for the price vs new, Im quite happy with them. But man, if one goes bad, 12tb is a lot to lose. Im thinking of just using them for back ups for that reason, so this way, I back up, stick in a drawer, bring out only to update backup. Thanks OP for the deal!
 

Shmee

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Keep in mind that even though these may be out of WD warranty, I think goharddrive warranties them for 5 years. I think that is what the warranty slip they gave me in my order said, though I would have to double check.
 

manly

Lifer
Jan 25, 2000
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Keep in mind that even though these may be out of WD warranty, I think goharddrive warranties them for 5 years. I think that is what the warranty slip they gave me in my order said, though I would have to double check.
goHardDrive must have a low cost basis on these drives, giving a 5 year "warranty" and people have been complimentary of their RMA service.

The HC520 12TB is down to $75 on eBay, so I finally pulled the trigger for my old 2-bay NAS (running XPEnology). Honestly I could have waited but maybe this will spur me to finally consolidate all my obsolete data into one location. Perhaps even upgrade to DSM 7.1, which seems like a chore.


I'll help you save another 5% off. First visit a promo link, and then you can apply the coupon BOFA5 during checkout.

Code:
https://www.ebay.com/start/shop?rmvSB=true&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339041562&customid=&toolid=10001&mkevt=1
 
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mindless1

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I'll help you save another 5% off. First visit a promo link, and then you can apply the coupon BOFA5 during checkout.

Code:
https://www.ebay.com/start/shop?rmvSB=true&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339041562&customid=&toolid=10001&mkevt=1
Thanks for the coupon link, have you confirmed that it works for these HDDs? It shows a search box and implies that is what the coupon code is valid for, but searching Ultrastar, only brings up a laptop.

On the landing page for it, I just see,
Cue the fireworks—and 20% off
Shop 4th of July savings on select tech, fashion, and more.
Get the coupon
Ends 7/4. Max $500 off. 2x use

Do we even need the link or just the code, JULY4DEALS ?
 

mikeford

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Jan 27, 2001
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goHardDrive must have a low cost basis on these drives, giving a 5 year "warranty" and people have been complimentary of their RMA service.

The HC520 12TB is down to $75 on eBay, so I finally pulled the trigger for my old 2-bay NAS (running XPEnology). Honestly I could have waited but maybe this will spur me to finally consolidate all my obsolete data into one location. Perhaps even upgrade to DSM 7.1, which seems like a chore.


I'll help you save another 5% off. First visit a promo link, and then you can apply the coupon BOFA5 during checkout.

Code:
https://www.ebay.com/start/shop?rmvSB=true&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&campid=5339041562&customid=&toolid=10001&mkevt=1

I bought one to replace a 6tb download drive I filled on my PC, its a nice drive. I haven't checked the smart data, but its silent, and very low vibration. I'm giving serious thought to 6 more to fill my 12 slot nas in another bank of RAID6.

I don't know what or why, but dumping 5.3TB from the PC internal drive D to new 12TB hanging off a USB adapter, speed was about 170mb/sec, twice what I get internal to internal.
 

mindless1

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Aug 11, 2001
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I bought one to replace a 6tb download drive I filled on my PC, its a nice drive. I haven't checked the smart data, but its silent, and very low vibration. I'm giving serious thought to 6 more to fill my 12 slot nas in another bank of RAID6.

I don't know what or why, but dumping 5.3TB from the PC internal drive D to new 12TB hanging off a USB adapter, speed was about 170mb/sec, twice what I get internal to internal.
Half that seems low for internal to internal, possibly true with smaller writes to SNR drives, but in some cases the OS caches the writes, so you can get really high #s.
 

Steltek

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Mar 29, 2001
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I think the Seagate 12TB drives had abnormally high failure rates, which is probably while they are cheaper. You might want to check the Backblaze website for more info.

The WD HC530 Ultrastars are a dollar cheaper if you buy them from their eBay store here. It is the same seller as on Newegg. They had the 12TB Ultrastars on sale a couple times in July and earlier this month for $75.00 apiece (limit was 5).
 
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