Each 2TB drive is $39.99 (the same drive in Amazon $51.00). The Sale ends Wednesday.  I picked up 3 drives and will search for a drive utility to test them

 

Western Digital RE4-GP WD2003FYPS 2TB 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236410

 

Warranty - Limited Warranty period (parts): 90 days (Extended 1Yr. for $5 or 2Yrs. $10). I don't recommend. I have used warranties in the past and they send you a check for the drive purchase price (which is $39.99), but they will not send you a replacement drive (which is preferred because the original dollar amount will unlikely be enough to purchase another drive of the same capacity).

... I picked up 3 drives and will search for a drive utility to test them

 

Nothing to search for -- just download WD's excellent Data Lifeguard for Windows [ http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en#WD_softwarepc ]

 

Run a quick test; then an extended test; then do a Full Erase (writes zeroes to the whole drive -- earlier versions of Data Lifeguard called this option "Write Zeroes" ... the latest version calls it "Erase");  then repeat the quick test and the extended teste.  Any drive that completes this cycle with no errors is fine.

 

Also, those are not "black" drives. They are RE4 drives (Raid Edition).

Garycase, thanks for the link.

 

There is also an excellent tutorial on youtube from Spaceinvader One (he has a different name on this forum). He has a tutorial on the "Preclear" plugin that checks that disk as well.

 

http://tinyurl.com/gsoszyk

 

I am in at step 1 of 5 (5 hours so far) checking the first of three disks.

 

Also, was this a good buy? I thought so but would like some input on the pros an cons (the obvious con one, being refurb).

 

Thanks!

It was a reasonable buy.  These are excellent drives; but a bit dated, so you won't have the performance of a more modern drive.  They have 500GB platters, so the areal density is lower than more modern drives, which would have 1TB platters.  So they're a bit heavier (4 platters instead of 2) and slower -- since only half as much data/revolution passes by the R/W heads.

 

But they're nevertheless very good drives -- they're enterprise-class drives with very heavy duty mechanicals and should last a long time.

 

And at $20/TB they're certainly a good value => a new drive would have cost you $30-40/TB for a consumer-grade drive and a good bit more for a new enterprise class drive.