renewed drive?

[TODDLT]

Have you, would you ever use a renewed drive, if it passed a preclear and smart data didn't show anything abnormal or excessive?

 

Drives are essentially half the normal price per TB, and would be used in a data backup rig.

Edited July 21 by TODDLT

[whipdancer]

I don’t buy anything else these days unless it’sa ridiculously good deal.

[TODDLT]

2 hours ago, whipdancer said:

I don’t buy anything else these days unless it’sa ridiculously good deal.

Meaning you buy "renewed" hard drives only?

[ConnerVT]

I have been using re-certified drives in my servers since I built my first Unraid server 3.5 years ago, and have had zero issues.  I've only purchased HGST drives, which are all likely pulled from commercial servers as part of preventative maintenance or storage space upgrades by the original owners.

 

Most important is to buy from well respected, reputable sellers.  There can be a big savings purchasing a used drive, but the little money saved going with the cheapest price found is not worth the risk.  My last few purchases were from ServerPartDeals.com who have been great to do business with.

 

The decision to buy new vs re-certified really depends on each person.  How important is the data?  Is the data replaceable?  Do you have a solid backup strategy? (RAID is not a backup)  What is your risk tolerance?  Everyone will have a different opinion, so it really comes down to what is important to you.

[TODDLT]

56 minutes ago, ConnerVT said:

I have been using re-certified drives in my servers since I built my first Unraid server 3.5 years ago, and have had zero issues.  I've only purchased HGST drives, which are all likely pulled from commercial servers as part of preventative maintenance or storage space upgrades by the original owners.

 

Most important is to buy from well respected, reputable sellers.  There can be a big savings purchasing a used drive, but the little money saved going with the cheapest price found is not worth the risk.  My last few purchases were from ServerPartDeals.com who have been great to do business with.

 

The decision to buy new vs re-certified really depends on each person.  How important is the data?  Is the data replaceable?  Do you have a solid backup strategy? (RAID is not a backup)  What is your risk tolerance?  Everyone will have a different opinion, so it really comes down to what is important to you.

 

They are Seagate Ironwolf Pro's and would be used in a new rig just as a data backup.  I was thinking it made complete sense to use them but started having 2nd thoughts.   If I do go this way I will do a smart check looking for high temp or high usage.. run a preclear, and return if they don't pass.  I'd probably only have 3 drives in the array, one of them for parity and space to add one more drive at some point.

If I ever actually needed that backup it means something already went very wrong.  I also live on the coast and want something I can pick up in the event of a storm and walk out the door with that doesn't weigh 70 lbs.  

 

The data is not irreplaceable, but it would be completely impractical to do it.  It's grown over probably 15 years and I dont even want to think how many hours it would take to start over.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even try.  That has me thinking of creating the backup rig.

The small portion of data that is important to me and irreplaceable is backed up in a different way and not so much at risk.    

 

 

[BRiT]

I would never buy any drive used without seeing a SMART long test report.

 

Upon receiving the drive, I'd run a SMART short test to validate it matches the long test report they provided. After that, I'd put it through at least 1 full cycle of PreClear testing. 

[whipdancer]

16 hours ago, TODDLT said:

Meaning you buy "renewed" hard drives only?

 

Correct. All my used drives have been from ServerPartsDeals on ebay. They've been in business for a while. I've bought 10 drives so far, 8TB to 16TB, including WD Ultrastar, Seagate Exos, Seagate Ironwolf and Toshiba.

I treat any drive I buy, new or used, the same - it gets 3 passes of preclear before anything else. I've had new drives and used drives fail this process (and more new drives failed than used). My most recent purchase was for new drives because of a ridiculous deal WD had on a 2-fer for WD Pro 18TB (which was ~$8 per TB IIRC) - 1 of them failed the 3x preclear process, so I had it replaced under warranty. I had the same issue with 1 drive I bought from ServerPartsDeals - and had it replaced under their warranty. The only advantage WD has is they would do an advanced replace, where they send me the new drive before my old drive actually gets to them - but they've only offered that to me once (and I've had 5 total "new" WD drives fail previously prior to warranty expiration).

Given the hassle WD and Seagate have made their warranty process for retail drives - I see no point in paying their premium anymore.

Edited July 21 by whipdancer
word vomit

[TODDLT]

5 hours ago, whipdancer said:

 

Correct. All my used drives have been from ServerPartsDeals on ebay. They've been in business for a while. I've bought 10 drives so far, 8TB to 16TB, including WD Ultrastar, Seagate Exos, Seagate Ironwolf and Toshiba.

I treat any drive I buy, new or used, the same - it gets 3 passes of preclear before anything else. I've had new drives and used drives fail this process (and more new drives failed than used). My most recent purchase was for new drives because of a ridiculous deal WD had on a 2-fer for WD Pro 18TB (which was ~$8 per TB IIRC) - 1 of them failed the 3x preclear process, so I had it replaced under warranty. I had the same issue with 1 drive I bought from ServerPartsDeals - and had it replaced under their warranty. The only advantage WD has is they would do an advanced replace, where they send me the new drive before my old drive actually gets to them - but they've only offered that to me once (and I've had 5 total "new" WD drives fail previously prior to warranty expiration).

Given the hassle WD and Seagate have made their warranty process for retail drives - I see no point in paying their premium anymore.

 

Theses are ~ $10 / TB, half of what they would be otherweise.

 

i've pre-cleared every drive in my array, usually 2 cycles.  Those were 6 TB drives, 3 cycles at 18 TB takes a week?  

[whipdancer]

90-something hours iirc, but it’s been awhile… 

Edited July 22 by whipdancer

[TODDLT]

These are the two reports after a long smart test.  Any thoughts.  One had near zero usage and the other a few hours.  I think they way the report "raw data" (in hexa) this is still OK, but any insight is helpful.  yes/no?

 

next step will be preclearing

 

ST18000NT001-3NF101_ZVTAXLKZ-20240723-0053.txt ST18000NT001-3NF101_ZVTAW2GT-20240723-0046.txt

Edited July 23 by TODDLT

[TODDLT]

On 7/22/2024 at 1:01 PM, whipdancer said:

90-something hours iirc, but it’s been awhile… 

 

Any chance you can have a peek at the two long smart reports and let me know if you see anything you would worry about?

[whipdancer]

The reports don't really say anything at this point. Because of the low hours, you need to stress test them and look at the report after.  Run preclear (I run 3 cycles), then run the long smart report.

[TODDLT]

6 hours ago, whipdancer said:

The reports don't really say anything at this point. Because of the low hours, you need to stress test them and look at the report after.  Run preclear (I run 3 cycles), then run the long smart report.

Thanks, 1st cycle will finish shortly tonight (3 days).  I'm doing 2 and then will do a long self test.  The self test took a day last time.