100% agree with hoof hearted. This is a 4 year old drive in a case that may have been put together last week so they can dump the old stock. See here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/4tb-3tb-hdd,3183-6.html
This is just a big Co trying not to alienate it's channel but shoving some stock out of the back door. The guys who run the shop do that all the time for loads of vendors. This drive was only going for about 50 just before the tsunami, then prices shot up, they haven't really gone back to a reasonable level since. Now all the old stock is stopping ssd drives from taking off despite their relative high price.
Think I'll pick one up and give it a good check asap and then return it if it's been used a lot. Anyone got a recommendation for a windows app to test with?
All comments (39)
liamo
13 Aug 16#1
Just wondering, i have a HP Gen 8 microserver, currently with 2 * WD Reds 3TB in it, each cost me around £90.
The other 2 disk drive bays are empty currently.
Would buying 2 of these be any good, so to make a RAID of it.
Can you open these up, strip the drives out of both of them, and then put them into a HP Gen8 Microserver.
So putting one of the WD Reds with one of the drives from this together (if it's a WD Green or whatever) into a RAID 1 array, would that be secure.
Would that be safe and work?
Astec123
13 Aug 161#2
I'd be interested to know this too. Are these fairly easy to extract from the caddies and then use as internal drives.
Depends what was refurbished on the CCTV unit, most were open box but never installed, OBVIOUSLY! Motherboards are easily swapped and replaced, components in a hard drive I don't think so. Each to their own just PLEASE don't start a "WHAAAA My drive broke after the very limited warranty (because WD have no faith in the product) where do I stand whaa whaa whaa"
NOT TO WORRY THOUGH THE 30 DAY PERIOD WILL FEEL LIKE AGES!
snagzie
13 Aug 161#5
Never had a problem with the recertified WD stuff (3 HDDs).
Just please don't rely on them as an only source of data storage, BACK THE KUCF UP
Just Wondering
13 Aug 16#6
Is this 7200 rpm? Anyone know the size of the cache?
robert260574
13 Aug 161#7
what gets me is you buy a extra storage device to back up your data then you need a extra device to back up your extra data/data and so on...when do you stop backing up .. bought a recertified wd cloud few years ago from wd outlet and use this for streaming my movies to my tv which it does without any problems.. thinking of another external just to plug into the back of my cloud for extra storage
Moss87
13 Aug 16#8
i went for one i hope it last me a while
whats the best program for testing these hard drives?
lynchnigel
13 Aug 16#9
A little story for anyone considering buying from WD.....
I'm using a recertified DL4100 NAS and 4 x 4TB hard drives in raid from them.
The original recertified NAS came to me faulty with one bay not working,returning it (you have to have your money back they said and rebuy one you get ping ponged between the store and tech support if you let them) but having to wait over two weeks for their warehouse to verify it had been returned when it plainly had been,then for them to tell me wait another 5-7 days! In the end i'm glad i paid with Paypal got my money back within 30 minutes of contacting them.
David23
13 Aug 161#10
I couldn't cope if I lost 3TB of data on one drive and I'm not going to back all of that up because I would have to buy another 3TB! I prefer to use many smaller sized drives like 500GB to spread the chances of potential failure out.
topss
13 Aug 16#11
That's not a back up solution!
David23
13 Aug 16#12
I have the same important stuff mirrored on all of those small drives and irreplaceable stuff like photos backed up to cloud storage. How is having like 10 chances before disaster not a good back up solution?!
topss
13 Aug 16#13
Ah, your clarification makes sense, the original comment didn't (to me anyway).
Personally, data security is towards the top of the list when making IT purchases. I would rather cut back slightly on, for example, a processor or graphics card than back up storage.
lynchnigel
13 Aug 16#14
So what happens once you run out of 500GB space on these several drives and they have stopped selling 500GB drives? :smiley:
jasee
13 Aug 16#15
I wouldn't use a recertified drive internally. That said, I have had a usb recertified WD drive as working storage for a bit torrent client for about the last six months. It's been on all the time and (of course) really taken a thrashing but it's been fine.
David23
13 Aug 16#16
Well eventually I will probably buy a few 1TB drives or something and move everything across and retire the 500GB ones. I try very hard to keep a lid on endlessly keeping things and regularly go through and delete stuff I don't really need otherwise you get into the endless growing storage spiral. Luckily most consumable stuff like games, movies and music can be downloaded again so I don't tend to back those up. Only work and photos really matter to me.
0zone
13 Aug 16#17
"Back up your data"
So, people are supposed to buy two of these to backup their backups? But wait, what happens if you need to backup your backuped backups? Best option for backups is cloud storage where it's off site. No use having a room of backup drives when your house catches fire, flooded or burglarised by some chump who thinks he's found an xbox 360.
HotdogginJNR
13 Aug 16#18
Can i use this for the Xbox one?
djvrs
13 Aug 161#19
Indeed. I had a new drive fail within days and a recertified one is still going 6 years later, you never know. Backup, backup, backup...oh and did I mention backup? Lol
kaplonk
13 Aug 16#20
Just curious guys if I can pull someone away from the forum argument, are you able to stream the files from this? Say if I wanted to watch a video on a smart TV would it just show up as a media device that I can stream from#??
ZAMtendo
13 Aug 16#21
No way in hell would I go for a recertified drive.
topss
13 Aug 16#22
If you had a sensible backup regime in place (cloud could be one aspect of that) then someone robbing your house or it burning down in a fire wouldn't be a worry in respect of any data. No one was suggesting to keep all your backups in one room - that would be pretty stupid, right?
sergiup to topss
13 Aug 161#23
RAID to provide local redundancy, one local backup, and one cloud or remote backup (like something in a friend's / relative's house). At least one of those should be versioned in case you make bad modifications. That should be more than enough.
frownbreaker
13 Aug 16#24
Recertified drives are factory made spares used as warranty replacements etc. WD keep some for failed units at launch and towards the end of the product life they sell of the unused stock.
They are new and sticker have a special serial.
I've had about 50 of these units.
Easy to take out of the case SEE PHOTOS in Link, Note the controller is specific to this model of drive it WILL NOT WORK with other versions (eg. WD Black) or other makes and Sizes only 3TB WD Greens! Shame on you WD.
The USB3 and controller in these is fast 150meg xfer is the norm on USB3
I just pop the drives out and use them in a SATA dock or PC directly.
No issues, Good Price heat ++
We're talking home use here buddy, not office. No office in their right mind would consider this product a backup solution, well aside from Trotters Independent Traders.
philstoker
13 Aug 16#26
Bought re certified. Still running like a dream.
hosiery
13 Aug 16#27
No. One of the £65 quid My Cloud boxes will show up as a DLNA media server on your network, suitable for a smart TV.
spannerzone
13 Aug 16#28
My backup regime is to backup onto at least 10 other drives, give them to friends and family and bury one in the garden and maybe have 5 different cloud accounts.
All those 100,000 mp3's I've got cost me a fortune in dialup back in 1999 and I'm damned if I'm losing them now :smile:
GoNz017
13 Aug 161#29
IT will be a WD Green so not good for a gen8 as the microserver controller doesn't spin down drives. Stick to reds as they are designed for 24/7 running, greens are meant to power down until needed
kaplonk
13 Aug 16#30
Oooooh ok thanks a lot! They look the same didn't think there was any difference haha. :stuck_out_tongue:
meherenow
14 Aug 161#31
Say what you like, new hard drives fail all the time.
I say this with plenty of experience...
And I have a couple of recertified 2TB drives that I read and write to all the time - got them 3 years ago.
Take all that with a pinch of salt.
But again, say what you like, new hard drives fail all the time.
sergiup to meherenow
14 Aug 16#32
Yes I'm talking about home use too, and I don't think that kind of redundancy / backup is excessive for things that you don't want to lose. It's also not that hard to set up nowadays.
An office is a completely different kettle of fish...
SpitfireXXI to meherenow
14 Aug 161#35
I've had absolutely no problems with 2x 4Gb versions of this drive, and 5x 2Gb portable ultras from WD...all recertified. PersonaIly I think this is a very decent deal. if I needed a drive at the moment, I'd have this. Heat given
meherenow
14 Aug 16#33
REALLY?!?!?!? 50 quid for a 3TB drive before the tsunami - not sure I remember that, selective memory here methinks...
haritori
14 Aug 16#34
I can't speak for the recertification quality, but I did buy the 2TB version of this drive on sale in tesco about 2 years ago now for a very cheap price, and its been plugged into my XB1 ever since and works very well, very happy with it.
This is a very attractive price for 3 TB.
I forgot to add i also have 1TB version as well, which is connected to my Airport Extreme and I have Time Machine Backing up to it, 24/7 for the last 8 months too, and that is great also.
0zone
14 Aug 16#36
The time of the desktop being the primary device is passed for most people. It's all about laptops, tablets, phones etc. Tying something to a desk is fine for people who sit there typing documents and browsing the web, but most media is consumed on other devices which by their nature have no RAID ability. In the cloud is the safest place for most average users these days. Even Office and adobe suite are cloud based now and it suits me fine, I'm a media creative so I only use local for large files which sync in the cloud, and occasionally I incrementally upload a disk image to the cloud too.
XP200
14 Aug 16#37
They have so much confidence in the quailty of these drives and the work they have done on them that they only give you a six month warrenty, that should tell you all you need to know about them, spend that £44 elsewhere.
JayTee8
14 Aug 162#38
All I need to know about them is they are hard drives and they work, perfect for backing up my non essential data.
If it fails, no problem - I have backups elsewhere too.
I'd rather have two re certified drives with 2 copies of my data than 1 brand new drive with 1 copy of my data, all for the same price.
gordoncrawford
14 Aug 16#39
That's not what recertification means, it means that the drive when made was say a 4tb and it had a problem with one of the platters so they changed the firmware and recertiied the drive and mapped out the errors in the firmware so suggest you look into it before opening your mouth and letting your belly rumb or in this case your fingers
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Opening post
This is just a big Co trying not to alienate it's channel but shoving some stock out of the back door. The guys who run the shop do that all the time for loads of vendors. This drive was only going for about 50 just before the tsunami, then prices shot up, they haven't really gone back to a reasonable level since. Now all the old stock is stopping ssd drives from taking off despite their relative high price.
Think I'll pick one up and give it a good check asap and then return it if it's been used a lot. Anyone got a recommendation for a windows app to test with?
All comments (39)
The other 2 disk drive bays are empty currently.
Would buying 2 of these be any good, so to make a RAID of it.
Can you open these up, strip the drives out of both of them, and then put them into a HP Gen8 Microserver.
So putting one of the WD Reds with one of the drives from this together (if it's a WD Green or whatever) into a RAID 1 array, would that be secure.
Would that be safe and work?
and regarding making a raid, it would depend which type of raid you are talking about eg some versions of raid use 3 drives to every one.
NOT TO WORRY THOUGH THE 30 DAY PERIOD WILL FEEL LIKE AGES!
Just please don't rely on them as an only source of data storage, BACK THE KUCF UP
whats the best program for testing these hard drives?
I'm using a recertified DL4100 NAS and 4 x 4TB hard drives in raid from them.
The original recertified NAS came to me faulty with one bay not working,returning it (you have to have your money back they said and rebuy one you get ping ponged between the store and tech support if you let them) but having to wait over two weeks for their warehouse to verify it had been returned when it plainly had been,then for them to tell me wait another 5-7 days! In the end i'm glad i paid with Paypal got my money back within 30 minutes of contacting them.
Personally, data security is towards the top of the list when making IT purchases. I would rather cut back slightly on, for example, a processor or graphics card than back up storage.
So, people are supposed to buy two of these to backup their backups? But wait, what happens if you need to backup your backuped backups? Best option for backups is cloud storage where it's off site. No use having a room of backup drives when your house catches fire, flooded or burglarised by some chump who thinks he's found an xbox 360.
They are new and sticker have a special serial.
I've had about 50 of these units.
Easy to take out of the case SEE PHOTOS in Link,
Note the controller is specific to this model of drive it WILL NOT WORK with other versions (eg. WD Black) or other makes and Sizes only 3TB WD Greens! Shame on you WD.
The USB3 and controller in these is fast 150meg xfer is the norm on USB3
I just pop the drives out and use them in a SATA dock or PC directly.
No issues, Good Price heat ++
A Good place for planning back ups is here http://www.dpbestflow.org/backup/backup-overview
All those 100,000 mp3's I've got cost me a fortune in dialup back in 1999 and I'm damned if I'm losing them now :smile:
I say this with plenty of experience...
And I have a couple of recertified 2TB drives that I read and write to all the time - got them 3 years ago.
Take all that with a pinch of salt.
But again, say what you like, new hard drives fail all the time.
An office is a completely different kettle of fish...
This is a very attractive price for 3 TB.
I forgot to add i also have 1TB version as well, which is connected to my Airport Extreme and I have Time Machine Backing up to it, 24/7 for the last 8 months too, and that is great also.
If it fails, no problem - I have backups elsewhere too.
I'd rather have two re certified drives with 2 copies of my data than 1 brand new drive with 1 copy of my data, all for the same price.