How important is Power On Hours in determining how much longer a drive will live? I have 2x WD20EADS that I no longer need, however they are pushing 25K power on hours, or well over 2 years. However, 99% of that time they were spun down. They have no SMART errors.

 

I was debating on selling them, but if these drives don't have much life in them I don't want to screw someone over.

How important is Power On Hours in determining how much longer a drive will live? I have 2x WD20EADS that I no longer need, however they are pushing 25K power on hours, or well over 2 years. However, 99% of that time they were spun down. They have no SMART errors.

 

I was debating on selling them, but if these drives don't have much life in them I don't want to screw someone over.

 

My UnRAID server has several drives with over 40,000 power on hours -- still going strong.

 

The ethical thing to do is to note exactly what you said above in your ad for the drives ... e.g. "No SMART errors -- work perfectly, I just don't need them as I replaced them with higher-capacity drives.  They have ~ 25,000 power-on hours, about 99% of the time spun down."

 

Or, if you don't want to explicitly call attention to the hours, simply post the SMART report with your ad 

 

Personally, I simply use old, lower-capacity drives  for backups.

 

Thanks.

I sell my old drives and in the listing I state exactly how many POH they have. I also state if there are any SMART issues. Most of the drives I sell have zero bad sectors and zero pending.

 

It doesn't seem to matter. Everything sells. I've recently sold 34 drives, some of which are ancient, but they are all working drives in good condition.

I'm netting (after FleaBay/Paypal fees) £35.53 per TB of drives sold, or £142.11 per 4TB. More than enough to replace the old drives with brand new 4TB drives.

That's surprising -- but glad it's working out for you.  And as long as you're listing the hours and detailing the SMART data, there's certainly nothing unethical or "shady" about the transaction -- the buyers know exactly what they're getting !!

 

I may have to start advertising some old drives on e-bay 

I wonder who is buying these drives ...?

 

I suspect, at these prices - almost the same as new drives, it is data recovery comopanies that need the older model drives' motherboards (electronics) to recover customers' older models that have issues with the electronics.

 

Nope. It's not companies. I suspect it's people who are replacing an existing dead 500GB SATA drive with another 500GB SATA drive because they don't know any better.

 

I got the most from old, but working IDE drives. If you have a working 500GB or 750GB IDE drive, eBay it. They're not making them any more and weirdos out there need them for their 10+ year old PC. Or maybe embedded system.

 

Interestingly, I got far less (per GB) for "off" sizes like 750GB and 1.5TB. I suspect it's because either people don't search for them, or they were not used as much by OEMs in PCs. An old 1TB drive sold for almost as much as a "brand new" 1.5TB (Seagate refurb) with zero POH.

 

It helps if you can make a nice eBay listing. And have your auctions end at 9pm on a Sunday. List on a Thursday for 10 days!

Here are my eBay sales so far this year: