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Please explain to me why you would buy a refurbished HD ...

dud

dud

Diamond Member
The price of HDs has increased because of the flooding iin Thailand. I understand that but as "expensive" as HDs have become ... why would you risk your precious data on a refurbished unit?

Please explain the logic to me. I ask because I am on Newegg's email list and see refurbished HDs on slae there from time-to-time at not-so-hot prices.

The risk seems to outweigh the savings you get with a refurb ...


Thanks
 
Some people don't view their data as being all that precious.
They are gamblers, cheap or both and are ready to roll the dice on a refurbished HD.
 
'Precious' data is backed up regularly?

Refurbished can easily be brand-new but returned?

Because it's half the price and not likely half the quality?
 
I have a lot of data that isn't precious or sensitive. Stuff like games that I have game discs for or access to via steam.

Things that I need to be backed up are saved in multiple locations. on the cloud and synced with my computer, physical media like discs if need be and other drives.

For an install drive that I'd put recoverable apps on a refurb if at a good price wouldn't be so bad.
 
Refurbished to me means a factory authorized service/review and testing. Ergo, refurbs would get a 100% inspection to include firmware. New drives do not usually get a 100% inspection, but are lot tested. My "precious" data is replicated on 4 different HDDs on different machines, and some key data is replicated on several thumb drives. Planned redundancy is security.
 
The problem, in my opinion, with refurbs is that you are never told what the original problem was with the product. Was it a return, hardware defect/failure, firmware? And on HDs especially, that is just unacceptable, for me at least.
 
IF a hard drive is going to fail, it's most likely going to fail in the first month or two. The most likely cause of this early failure is shipping damage.

A Used / Refurbished drive has the same, if not better odds, compared to a new drive as refurbs go through more strenuous inspection than a new one does, and a used model has already proven it can survive a shipping / general use during it's most likely fail period.

As long as they are both under the same warrenty, it doesn't matter which one you pick so why not get the cheaper one.


Grumpy, I'd disagree that the original problem matters. If it's repaired and survives a more strenuous test than a retail drive it's ready to stand a shot at surviving shipping. (*again, it's far far more likely that a refurb DOA / problem is from reshipment damage than anything to do with the original problem.)
Checking/looking into how an e-tailer will ship a drive to you will lead to far fewer problems than worring about refurb vs new.
 
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Deadmilkman, we will have to agree to disagree then. I might buy a refurbed monitor, but not a hardrive that will have my data on it, just due to fact that they won't tell me exactly what was fixed and what kind of testing it has gone through. Just because a company tells me, "It's fixed now", doesn't mean I believe it or that it's true. But that's just me and you are probably correct, but still, I would always have that lingering doubt if anything happened to it again. If I wanted to save money on a HD then I would just buy OEM.
 
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If you're relying upon a single hard drive to protect your data integrity, then that's definitely a problem.

I'd rather have a pair of refurb drives in RAID-1, than a single brand-new drive without the protection of RAID.

Better performance as well with the higher number of spindles. And if you get a good deal on the drives, the cost of acquisition can be similar.
 
If you rely on a single drive for storing valuable data, then that reflects a possible weakness in judgment. Pitz has it right. Refurbs can provide inexpensive redundancy. I see no way the retailer can know what was done by the factory authorized service technician. Don't confuse refurbishment with retailer repackaging of a return.

If refurb bothers you - don't buy. It's that simple.
 
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corkyg said:
If you rely on a single drive for storing valuable data, then that reflects a possible weakness in judgment. Pitz has it right. Refurbs can provide inexpensive redundancy. I see no way the retailer can know what was done by the factory authorized service technician. Don't confuse refurbishment with retailer repackaging of a return.

If refurb bothers you - don't buy. It's that simple.
Click to expand...

Yup, SANs and managed storage is awesome for this stuff. Even in the home, you can put together a FreeNAS box for not a lot of money (or power consumption), and have managed, redundant storage. Most computers can be booted through iSCSI and Gig-E these days, so you don't even need to put HDDs in the client machines (or you can just use a SSD and iSCSI or even CIFS/SMB mount everything).

I pretty much cringe when I see people with a pile of computers throughout their houses these days with individual, non-redundant hard drives. There's really not a lot of good reason for it, and it causes a lot of heartache when those drives do fail. 4 drives in RAID-10 in a FreeNAS box likely will have far better performance for most computer users in the house than a bunch of HDDs scattered about in various machines, and with HDDs costing a lot more these days, centralizing storage cuts costs.
 
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GoStumpy said:
'Precious' data is backed up regularly?
Click to expand...
For most people, no.

Refurbished can easily be brand-new but returned?
Click to expand...
No, refurbished means it was broken and then fixed. If it was returned with no issues its an open box.
Open box has no negative connotations. Refurbished does. The only reason they don't call all refurbished open box is honesty and potential lawsuits for fraud... and a good amount of people do make that lie.

Because it's half the price and not likely half the quality?
Click to expand...
Rarely half the price.
Guaranteed to be lower quality, since refurbishing electronics only occurs if they are very expensive, made of replaceable parts, or a very very large percentage of them fails in the same manner (which means that someone is trained in fixed a large quantity of them in an identical manner).
If only a small amount fails, then you have no incentive to figure out why and how to fix it... throw them in trash and give the customer a new unit. If a ton of them fail you get an engineering team to find the problem and get techs trained to fix it... I am talking from experience here.
If its made of replaceable parts then it might make sense... replace parts until it works, keep all but the last part to be replaced (goes in the trash) and put it out as refurbished... But I guarantee that the guy replacing parts in a HDD is not doing it in as sterile an environment as it was assembled in.
 
taltamir said:
Guaranteed to be lower quality, since refurbishing electronics only occurs if they are very expensive, made of replaceable parts, or a very very large percentage of them fails in the same manner (which means that someone is trained in fixed a large quantity of them in an identical manner).
If only a small amount fails, then you have no incentive to figure out why and how to fix it... throw them in trash and give the customer a new unit. If a ton of them fail you get an engineering team to find the problem and get techs trained to fix it... I am talking from experience here.
If its made of replaceable parts then it might make sense... replace parts until it works, keep all but the last part to be replaced (goes in the trash) and put it out as refurbished... But I guarantee that the guy replacing parts in a HDD is not doing it in as sterile an environment as it was assembled in.
Click to expand...

I'd be highly surprised if any refurbished drives on the market today (or in the past 20-30 years) have had work involving repairs to their mechanicals. Typically the process for a not-otherwise-working drive (ie: a defective return) would involve a quick diagnosis of electronics failure, replacement of the PCB with a new one, and post-repair validation.
 
corkyg said:
Refurbished to me means a factory authorized service/review and testing. Ergo, refurbs would get a 100% inspection to include firmware. New drives do not usually get a 100% inspection, but are lot tested. My "precious" data is replicated on 4 different HDDs on different machines, and some key data is replicated on several thumb drives. Planned redundancy is security.
Click to expand...
This. One could make the argument for factory refurbished/recertified products being more reliable than new ones.

Also, new hard drives fail too. Always, ALWAYS back up your data if it's something you couldn't stand to lose, whether you're using new or refurb/recert drives. As mentioned the problem isn't so much refurb vs new, the problem is trusting your data to a single drive.
 
pitz said:
I'd be highly surprised if any refurbished drives on the market today (or in the past 20-30 years) have had work involving repairs to their mechanicals. Typically the process for a not-otherwise-working drive (ie: a defective return) would involve a quick diagnosis of electronics failure, replacement of the PCB with a new one, and post-repair validation.
Click to expand...

Which generally only happens if there is a problem with the electronics causing regular failure.

Originally Posted by corkyg
Refurbished to me means a factory authorized service/review and testing. Ergo, refurbs would get a 100% inspection to include firmware. New drives do not usually get a 100% inspection, but are lot tested. My "precious" data is replicated on 4 different HDDs on different machines, and some key data is replicated on several thumb drives. Planned redundancy is security.
Click to expand...
Sure it works... when it comes out of the factory.
But the fact it was refurbished in the first place means a high level of failures... think back on the early xbox360s with the RROD. there was a design flaw that caused a lot of failures. The fact there is refurbishing going on at all for something so cheap and integrated means that there is such a design flaw.
 
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on a side note, one of the hdd parts manufacture has 9 of 10 plants back up and operational.

You will see the prices start to drop probably after the xmas holiday.
 
For what it is worth, sent a new HD to Seagate, since it died, got back a reburb, that died in under 2 days. Then got another "recertified" drive, and that just failed after 3 months of light use.

You ask me, it is all a crapshoot on a "recertified" HD. You may get something good, or not.
 
Blain said:
Some people don't view their data as being all that precious.
They are gamblers, cheap or both and are ready to roll the dice on a refurbished HD.
Click to expand...

I bought my 2TB drive refurbed, im using 1.1tb of data on it and if i lost it i would be screwed 😛. I ran 24hrs of stability testing beore i put my stuff on it, its been running fine since june.
 
I've bought alot of demo, refurb, and used things in my life that are as good as new. Much of it electronics. I've yet to have any issues with anything worth mentioning, but I've saved a mint. In fact, I would actually say I've had better luck with the above than things I've paid for new.

It's only worth what you are willing to pay and (in this case) lose. Any HD can fail..refurb or not. I would actually say a refurb is less likely to fail simply because it was just "repaired' for whatever reason.
 
dud said:
The price of HDs has increased because of the flooding iin Thailand. I understand that but as "expensive" as HDs have become ... why would you risk your precious data on a refurbished unit?
Click to expand...

Because I run a fault-tolerant RAID array and a hard drive failure is merely an annoyance.
 
A refurb HDD is not like other refurbed products. They don't 'fix' the platters then spit and shine it the exterior. If anything they'll run the same diag surface tests we do, permanently block off any reallocated sectors and give it new ones if there's space.

If anything refurbed drives may have better quality control then regular drives simply because they're being checked twice.
 
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