Click. Click. Click.

I bought a WD 250 Gig drive in the noughties for about 50 quid. Full of old porn now, time for an upgrade:p

Is that the sound of the drives dying, or the sound of you clicking deal, add to cart, checkout?

It looks good. I'd be happy with that. Doesn't guarantee error free (nothing will) but much less likely now.

Hopefully I got lucky, don't think it threw up any errors? https://www.dropbox.com/s/outgn04flngdfqb/Screenshot%202016-05-13%2009.56.57.png?dl=0

Thanks man, good advice. Looks like my drive is due tomorrow so I will check it out!

That sucks :disappointed: hope they help you out quicktime

i got two drives, so far with one i copied a few gb, ran tests, formatted, and copied a few tb and it appears ok but the second drive, i copied a few gb, tested ok, deleted the partition but it wouldnt reformat in windows or with the WD formatting program so it looks like that ones knackered. if they don't have a replacement i'll send both back, after wasting hours copying stuff

Personally I run 3 layers of tests, each take more time but you can pick and choose how often you do them.

1. Run a SMART test (short test last minutes, long test is hours) gsmartcontrol is a good utility for this. Remember you can continue using HDD while this is running but PC has to be on. If this says things are looking bad then run next set of tests but be warned drive probably isn't that far from failing so make/keep backups.

2. On Windows I'd then run chkdsk every so often in the equivalent of "read" mode. This takes hours and for some drives you have to do it at boot. This identifies bad sectors which can be "avoided" when writing to disk. So its good to run on "healthy" disks every so often.

3. Before declaring something faulty I would do a read-write test. In Linux its bad blocks and on Windows I'd use spinrite (Google for guide). If there are too many bad sectors consider getting new drive or at the least store stuff on the drive that you can afford to lose.

Remember just because HDD crashed doesn't mean permanent fault. The number of times windows failed and I've run chkdsk and then reformatted drive and it worked (got a few 7 year olds). That because when file system is recreated it avoids using the bad sectors the other tools identify.

Same thing happened to me, took 3 emails and a month to get a refund. My order from the real store was OK though arrived in a few days.

would you recommend chkdsk for a comprehensive test then mate?

Just highlights that you need to run the same checks on new and recertified drives. In my experience either the drives die early (infant mortality) or ends up lasting a long time.

SMART results will only get you so far. Need to do decent sector by sector check.

In any case if on Windows, get familiar with chkdsk with the /r and or /b flags or use SpinRite.

On Linux badblocks is king.

Be forewarned people i ordered a re certified drive TWO WEEKS ago and they still haven't even shipped it I've even contacted them twice after being told it could take a week, seems the people who are running WD's store don't care much. Thought it was worth mentioning as two weeks and its not even been shipped is ridiculous.

Bought 4TB drive from this deal last month, the drive was disconnecting intermittently. Unrecoverable bad sectors + Not passing Extended SMART test in WD's own Lifeguard software. Got full refund. Not saying drive you'll buy will be the same, but what if ?

doh - ta :smiley:

erm at the top of this page :confused:

would you have a link with this £10 off coupon offer? thanks!

Time`s a funny old thing, or new.

Got somewhere they offer more TBs per £?

6 months

thanks for checking. i got a couple of 6tb drives at £130 so could have saved £26 potentially but the last time i got a couple they sold out pretty quick so they may not be there in 8 days. it was march 2015 when i last got a pair and i never got a code then so it's maybe only sometimes they do it. roughtly when did you get a code, weeks or months or just days ago? no need to check for exact date. it was maybe an offer just at that time. the reason i got 2 is i'm moving from 4tb as i'm running out of space and one drive is the backup so having one without a same size backup makes things a bit akward. cheers anyways

well sure, seagates are the worst by far, but there other brands - hitachi/toshiba are better (and for now they haven't let wdc take over manufacturing)

Got the deal last month for the 3tb version, best bang for buck including code £43.99 delivered, purchased two, no problems at all with both drives, spin time on both units was less than a hour. Also for the recertified haters, I have had a recertified Buffalo NAS for over 5 years from a deal on here, been running 24/7 and still no problems with it. The speeds I get copying files from ssd to usb3 is approx 125mbps, constant.

Oops just checking my emails and I got the code 8 days after the order. If you want exact dates and times just let me know. Maybe you didn't want to wait that long anyway?

Check the SMART status and you'll see how many hours the disk has been running for. They are def getting rid of the old returned Green drives. Buy a new one and you get the rebranded Blue new drives.

In my experience WD drives are much more reliable than Seagate ...never had a WD fail but had 3 or 4 Seagates fail

Nice deal! whats the warranty like on these?

Same here - unit was brand new, although in a brown box. Assumed to be surplus replacement stock for warranty claims. Would certainly buy again.

you'd have to be pretty brave buying WD, especially recertified! cold, its not a great price either

He did.
In fact he made two. :-)

I just noticed this but bought 2 this morning, but never got a code. is it an individual code or something you can share?

I got 3x of these during the last sale to pluck the drives for a NAS (after running WDIDLE!). The drives had various dates of manufacture, from memory two were from Feb 2016, one was Dec 2015, the label was a recertified one though, but the drive looked very fresh and untouched. They were fairly easy to remove, the inner piece needs to be levered out at the top and bottom of the book's 'spine', then the inner piece slides out. Be careful because the drive is only held in by rubber bumpers.

You get a 20% coupon by email after a purchase and its valid for 30 days. So if buying 2 drives buy 1 then use the coupon for the second. With this coupon its often the same price or cheaper to buy new drives rather than from the outlet. E.g. the My Book Elements 5TB is £95 either way.

​take a guess

Personal porn is best stored locally imo, dont want your kids getting their hands on that down the line from mates at school haha.

People on this site go mental for second hand hdds... weird lot

Its a horrible expensive time consuming sound, the sooner SSD`s become old tech the happier I will be.
But crystal clear is a long way off yet.

sata*

bought some a while ago, drives report fine still. housings were useless though, the interface went literally bang on one. lots if refurbs about because their data to USB interface seems to be a poor design.

Can recommend WD re-certified (A 3TB WD mycloud for £67.99 a few weeks ago and seemed like new to me....)

I bought a WD 250 Gig drive in the noughties for about 50 quid. Full of old porn now, time for an upgrade:p

Was just about to make a similar comment to @zebrum about the 20% coupon. Very handy.
Got a 4TB My Cloud NAS for £95 which is a steal I think. Also very quiet.
Anyone know if they use WD Red's in the My Clouds? I haven't tried taking the casing off yet.
I have another 2 bay NAS which needs an extra drive so figured I might get another of the refurbs and strip it if it has a Red in it.

I suppose if you need mass storage of stuff thats not important then its good

A friend used to buy cheap hard drives, and some work ok but some eventually failed.

The 3TB is better value with the £10 off coupon if you buy 2.(backup of each other)

Click. Click. Click.

Excellent price. :smiley: