REFURB (NOS?) WD Blue 160GB SATA2 3.5" HDD $14.99 FS @ Newegg

[VirtualLarry]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236810&ignorebbr=1

Says refurb, but three reviews, including one from this month, say no POH recorded in SMART.

I know that when I've bought "refurb" smaller SATA HDDs from Newegg before, they usually have between 3-5 years of POH, even if they don't have any bad sectors.

If these are NOS, could be a deal for boot drives, for some applications. (DC crunching box, or PCs to give away, for example.)

 

[Replay]

Interesting. Probably NOS, but it makes me wonder if some drives can have their SMART data reset.
Will be slow by modern standards, but as you say, good give-away or whatever drives.

 

[cbn]

Interesting. Probably NOS, but it makes me wonder if some drives can have their SMART data reset.

After doing some research I found out there are ways to reset SMART.

Since these drives are direct from Western Digital, I suspect they are warranty returns with some kind of service from Western Digital to fix whatever was broken. Then Western Digital resets SMART and replaces the original label on the drive with one below that says recertified.

 

[cbn]

Nvm. (Previous comments deleted)

Thinking about this more....

.....I think the only way to determine if WD resets SMART or not is to check and see if some recertified drives come with power on hours reported or not.

If some of the drives have power-on-hours reported and some do not then I would think some drives could be new.

But then what does WD do with broken drives after they fix them? (I would think resetting SMART makes sense here). This would make determining what is new drive and a repaired broken unit impossible.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Hmm. I plugged one into my USB3.0 dual-drive dock (Ultra brand), and HDTune wouldn't read SMART, but I have it doing a surface scan.

Then I downloaded CrystalDiskInfo from here:
http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

It does read SMART through my USB dock.

Showed 0 POH when I powered it up, but shows 3 power-cycle counts.

Whether that means that they reset SMART data, I don't know.

But the outer shell looked absolutely new.

I think that these are NOS, sold as "refurb" so that they don't have to warranty them.

I picked up some 50GB OCZ SSDs that were sold that way. Zero POH on those too. Looked absolutely new.

 

[cbn]

Here is a Western Digital recertified 3200AZKX (320GB) on sale for $21 free shipping after promo code (unfortunately it expires today):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236963

According to the following database this is a 1TB platter drive short stroked to 320GB:

http://rml527.blogspot.com/2010/10/hdd-platter-database-western-digital-35_26.html

So its a relatively new manufacture drive.

In contrast, my NOS 320GB WD Caviar SE (for $22 shipped) is an older drive based on two 160GB platters according to the same data base.

Overall, the performance of this 320GB drive I am listing here would be much greater than that NOS 320GB drive I bought back in June. This due to the higher platter density and short stroking.

NOS (but slower) with one year warranty vs. Recertified (but faster, newer design) with 180 day warranty....an interesting choice to make.

P.S. More info on the effect of short stroking here and here.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Just a quick note, forgot to mention I was getting 125MB/sec from this drive during the surface scan. Not too shabby for a drive this size. I think this is a short-stroked drive, of at least 500GB platters.

Edit: I think that my WDC 6400AAKS gave me around 100MB/sec, and that was a two-platter 320GB/platter drive, AFAIK.

 

[cbn]

Just a quick note, forgot to mention I was getting 125MB/sec from this drive during the surface scan. Not too shabby for a drive this size. I think this is a short-stroked drive, of at least 500GB platters.

Edit: I think that my WDC 6400AAKS gave me around 100MB/sec, and that was a two-platter 320GB/platter drive, AFAIK.

In that database I linked back in post #6, WD1600AAJS was listed under 160GB platters all the way through 500GB platters.

Do you mind downloading HWinfo64 (or whatever program you like to use) and looking to see what the complete part number is?

 

[VirtualLarry]

According to CrystalDiskInfo, it's a WDC WD1600AAJS-00YZCA0 160.0GB . 8MB buffer cache.

 

[cbn]

According to CrystalDiskInfo, it's a WDC WD1600AAJS-00YZCA0 160.0GB . 8MB buffer cache.

Yep, it is the drive using a 500GB platter. :thumbsup:

 

[VirtualLarry]

So, did anyone besides myself avail themselves of this offer?

Thanks, cbn, for your continued input on this thread, you've been very helpful. (cbn for Elite!)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Here is a Western Digital recertified 3200AZKX (320GB) on sale for $21 free shipping after promo code (unfortunately it expires today):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236963

WDC 3200AAJS on sale for $21.99 (refurb):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236972

 

[cbn]

WDC 3200AAJS on sale for $21.99 (refurb):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236972

That is the same hard drive (WD 3200AAJS) I bought new for $22 shipped two months ago.

Now the price has increased to $26 shipped:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...469172&sr=1-2&keywords=3200AAJS&condition=new

P.S. I haven't order from Finity India yet, but they do have a 100% positive feedback rating and offer a 1 year warranty.

EDIT: Here is another listing from the same company also for a new WD 3200AAJS, $24.45 free shipping:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...=1-243&keywords=western+digital&condition=new

(I don't see a warranty mentioned in the description though)

 

[cbn]

For 160GB 3.5" drives in new condition, here is what I could find:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...ywords=western+digital+1600aajs&condition=new

WD 1600AAJS from Finity India, $23 with free shipping... no warranty mentioned. (Obviously the 320GB from the same seller in the previous post is a better deal at $1.45 more)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list...r=1-30&keywords=western+digital&condition=new

WD1600JS from WPII for $17.50 free shipping (also at $14.99 free shipping from DBSKY, but the seller only 3 ratings). 1 year warranty.

NOTE: Both the sellers I mentioned for the WD1600JS are fairly new, but at least WPII has 100% positive feedback for their 128 ratings (DBSKY is also 100%, but only three ratings)

P.S. WD1600JS is a hard drive with two 80GB platters. This, in contrast, to the WD1600AAJS Larry listed in the OP which is 160GB short stroked from a 500GB platter.

160 GB from one 500GB platter is going to be faster than 160GB from two 80GB platters.

 

[VirtualLarry]

BTW, Directron.com offers "new pull" 160GB HDDs from "major brands" for $17.99 ea + ship.

 

[cbn]

BTW, Directron.com offers "new pull" 160GB HDDs from "major brands" for $17.99 ea + ship.

Here is the listing:

http://www.directron.com/160gbsata.html?_s_icmp=filter

Some others too:

http://www.directron.com/wd1600ysnp.html?_s_icmp=filter

http://www.directron.com/st3160318asnp.html (This one at $16.99 + ship also has a 5% off Coupon code "Storemore")

When I checked part numbers under "Full description" there were four listed:

ST3160318AS/ ST3160815AS/ ST3160812AS/ ST3160023AS

The first one is 500GB platter, the second and third have 160GB platters, and the last is 80GB platter.

 

[cbn]

For someone that needs a relatively large drive cheap and doesn't mind rebates Tiger Direct has this Famous Brand 750GB refurb for $14.99 after $15 rebate, free shipping:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9618980

(I'm thinking for a cheap SteamOS box, this drive may not be a bad idea since it is probably one of the cheapest ways to meet Valve's requirement of a 500GB drive)

P.S. I have ordered one of Tiger Direct's Famous brand refurb hard drives before. In my case, I bought a 80GB and ended up receiving a Seagate 7200.10 with 26,000+ hours on it.

 

[BenJeremy]

Well, if you need some capacity, I bought one of these "White Label" 3TB drives - I think they are recertified WD drives.

I only paid $65, but they are up to $75 now.

My son has been using it for 3 months without issues. If you are looking for something to stuff Steam games on, this is pretty decent (if it blows up... well, it's only the Steam and/or Origin library, right? Easy enough to restore)

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, if you need some capacity, I bought one of these "White Label" 3TB drives - I think they are recertified WD drives.

I only paid $65, but they are up to $75 now.

My son has been using it for 3 months without issues. If you are looking for something to stuff Steam games on, this is pretty decent (if it blows up... well, it's only the Steam and/or Origin library, right? Easy enough to restore)

Considering that you can get a retail-box Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM HDD of Hitachi lineage, with 3-year warranty, for $85 on sale fairly often at Newegg, I'm not sure that's that great of a deal.

 

[BenJeremy]

Considering that you can get a retail-box Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM HDD of Hitachi lineage, with 3-year warranty, for $85 on sale fairly often at Newegg, I'm not sure that's that great of a deal.

Well, NewEgg does currently have a 3TGB Toshiba recert for $70 (Free shipping) - sold by... third party vendor... GoHardDrive.

I was just throwing it out there for somebody who wants to save a few bucks.

 

[cbn]

Looking through the White label hard drives GoHarddrives.com lists in the following link here, I noticed some are labeled New and some are not.

So yeah, it must be that WD, Seagate, etc. do release new inventory but in some cases insist it be labeled differently.

 

[cbn]

Double post.

 

[cbn]

Well, if you need some capacity, I bought one of these "White Label" 3TB drives - I think they are recertified WD drives.

I only paid $65, but they are up to $75 now.

My son has been using it for 3 months without issues. If you are looking for something to stuff Steam games on, this is pretty decent (if it blows up... well, it's only the Steam and/or Origin library, right? Easy enough to restore)

BenJeremy,

Do you know how to check for Power On hours (by looking up SMART)?

If you do can you tell us how many hours are on the drive you bought?

 

[BenJeremy]

BenJeremy,

Do you know how to check for Power On hours (by looking up SMART)?

If you do can you tell us how many hours are on the drive you bought?

That ship sailed a while ago. My son uses his PC daily to play games (Summer Vacation). I might bug him to run a check on that later today though, just to see what it reads now.

UPDATE: He's got 650 hours on the drive, which went in in mid-May, so I'd say there was close to zero hours on the drive when we got it, because I'd have estimated he had more than 1000 hours on his PC this summer.

 

[cbn]

could be a deal for boot drives, for some applications. (DC crunching box, or PCs to give away, for example.)

Or maybe a router. A router that caches web pages.

P.S. This deal is still active, Has anyone else bought one of these and checked out SMART and the external condition of the drive?