PLEASE I THOUGHT WE WERE OVER THIS constant posting of broken-returned-fixed WD drives after the last 500 times they were posted.

PLEASE don't start posting every single broken-returned-fixed WD drive on the website.

Had a few none lasted more than a few weeks and the very short warranty you get means that WD don't expect them too either.

It doesn't. Warranty is 6 months. I've had six or so refurbished drives from WD. No failures (after 2 years). You can return the item for a full refund within the first 30 days, but the drive is guaranteed by WD for 6 months. Typically if any drive doesn't fail in the first 2 months, it will be good for a long time. Refurb drives I've had have all look brand new, but aren't retail packaged.

General opinion is that these drives have cosmetic faults (scratches) or have been needlessly returned to WD (e.g. Amazon return), had faulty power cables / USB cables replaced and sold off for cheap. The other prevailing opinion is that these offers are really annoying, so these people post helpful things like "I bought 100 and they were all dead on arrival".

Just don't. The software flat-out does not work on Mac OS and you are responsible for returning it to Holland for a refund (eventually) after trying to convince a bored underpaid call centre drone in the Philippines that you have a legitimate reason to return it. Save yourself the time and hassle. You have better things to do, don't you? Of course you do. Go on holiday. Read a great book. Live your life and love your kids. Avoid an external WD drive.

I've bought 4 drives through this section on the WD website - roughly one every two years. So the newest has been running for 2 years and the oldest for 8(!). I haven't had a single problem with any of them. So there's nothing inherently wrong with recertified drives. Obviously there are going to be some bad ones somewhere but just because you/someone got a faulty one doesn't mean that every single other drive is going to be a bad one. Any hard drive has a chance of failure, regardless of age or price, so if your data is that important don't keep it on just one drive. Apart from that, this is a good way of saving some money if you need some extra storage space.

Great deal bought two

Brilliant

What drives are in the new and old models?

PLEASE I THOUGHT WE WERE OVER THIS constant posting of broken-returned-fixed WD drives after the last 500 times they were posted.

PLEASE don't start posting every single broken-returned-fixed WD drive on the website.

Had a few none lasted more than a few weeks and the very short warranty you get means that WD don't expect them too either.

30 day warranty on a HD, sod that!

My bad, sorry, its 30 days money back. What is the warranty?

6-month limited warranty

It doesn't. Warranty is 6 months. I've had six or so refurbished drives from WD. No failures (after 2 years). You can return the item for a full refund within the first 30 days, but the drive is guaranteed by WD for 6 months. Typically if any drive doesn't fail in the first 2 months, it will be good for a long time. Refurb drives I've had have all look brand new, but aren't retail packaged.

General opinion is that these drives have cosmetic faults (scratches) or have been needlessly returned to WD (e.g. Amazon return), had faulty power cables / USB cables replaced and sold off for cheap. The other prevailing opinion is that these offers are really annoying, so these people post helpful things like "I bought 100 and they were all dead on arrival".

Lasts only 2-3 months . Keep your receipt.

I bought one and apart from plain packaging it looked new, been using it for a few weeks without issue :smiley:

I know, I have 8 of them in two servers bought over the last few years. All good and never missed a beat, one server has been on non stop for just over 2 years.
I've not voted hot or cold as this was a touch cheaper a few weeks ago.

In addition they don't appear to change the status of these drive in their warranty database. The result is you can return them as long as their original warranty is intact. I returned a refurb more than a year after purchase with no problems.

I'm not sure if i should get this or this deal for a new drive

Just don't. The software flat-out does not work on Mac OS and you are responsible for returning it to Holland for a refund (eventually) after trying to convince a bored underpaid call centre drone in the Philippines that you have a legitimate reason to return it. Save yourself the time and hassle. You have better things to do, don't you? Of course you do. Go on holiday. Read a great book. Live your life and love your kids. Avoid an external WD drive.

Is there any point paying the extra £8 for the new model over the old one? Probably got the same internals anyway.

No cooling on these.... my 'cooled' recertified drive well over a year old...
Just got a usb powered 120mm fan sat on top in a cupboard :smiley:

you need to have plex pass. its £3.99 a month

Do that give you a discount code for the wd store then?

WD were once a well respected brand. But as of late there failure rates are not what they once were. Even if it was at £20, a refurbished model? 30 days warranty? That's a chance I wouldn't take. The amount of WD posts of late are somewhat of a concern on their quality control.

You've been unlucky then. I've had probably a dozen of these recertified drives from WD in the past, and I've never had a problem with any of them.

Same here. Got a couple of WD recertified drives on the back of hukd deals and they've been good as gold. As with any hard drive I buy I would recommend a long test (takes a few hours) before using.

KEEP ON POSTING THE WD RECERTIFIED DRIVES DEALS FOLKS

Also have 4 of them which were tested thoroughly and then shucked. Have been running for a couple of years now without issue.
The enclosures that these come in aren't all that reliable, but the drives inside are solid.

Ooh, didn't know about that. Got a lifetime pass, didn't know we got discounts!

software ? It's an external drive

Another common theme is a lack of evidence, either way really. SMART stats would certainly help.

Rgds
Pops

I've had several recertified drives over the last couple of years from them and not a single issue. Despite the naysayers on here there also seems to be plenty of others with similar experience. Good deal and I regularly get 20% discount codes from WD which can be used in conjunction with this deal. Have saved myself loads.

The mac version looks nicer for the same price:

https://www.wdc.com/en-gb/products/wd-recertified/my-book-studio.html

I've sent mine back every few months just to be sent another recertified drive that fails within weeks/months. I'm getting to the point where I can't be bothered to send it back anymore (probably what they hope will happen). WD drives are shockingly bad and I would never buy another!

*Reads thread. Prays for Armageddon*

Two things to be very careful about WD My Book drives is that they have a very high failure rate and the stored data is encrypted so if something happens to the controller you will be screwed. You can't take the drive out and simply put it in a PC as .... the data is encrypted and you won't see anything there. The drive can be repaired with great difficulty but its just not worth the risk. I've had three My Books go down where I effectively lost the data. Yes I tried putting the drives in the PC and trust me .... it doesn't work.

Bought two last week and received them earlier this week. Ran some diagnostics and check both of them are all fine. Strip them out and dump into NVR with redundant recording storage. Perfect.

I have 16 WD drives in my server, half are re-certified, still going strong after 2-3 years running 24/7, only drives i've ever had fail before were seagate.
I bought a re-certified external drive last year and it was dead on arrival, just took the drive out and put it in my pc, ran just fine.

i didnt know either until I saw people mention it on the datahoarder reddit. The discount isnt as good for EU as it is if you're from the US. They get 20% off all items when. we're limited to external drives only and nothing already reduced like Recertified drives

I'm waiting on a deal on some WD Reds. I dont think I can trust Recertified drives

It's a shame you feel so bitter about it Graham1979.

I didn't have the experience you like to complain about. Bought a refurbished 6TB cloud drive for around 100 a while ago. Came with a 6TB red drive working perfectly. Very please

Never buying WD again after one of my 6tb internal blues just suddenly packed it in a week after owning it. All that pr0n just gone. :disappointed:

PLEASE BUY THESE I'VE HAD SEVERAL NEVER HAD ANY ISSUES I HOPE MY CAPITAL LETTERS EMPHASIZE MY POINT

Your experiences are just one in the many thousands who have bought from them, just because you have had issues doesn't mean all will. It sucks to have anything fail on you, especially after weeks but for every bad experience there are lots of good ones.

I have had five of these recert HDDs with no problems at all, all have already run well past the six month warranty and continue to. We get that you have been burned with these HDDs and won't touch them, I probably wouldn't either if I had that many fail on me, but doesn't mean others shouldn't be able to post on a public deals forum.

Heated, great price for 4TB!

Will this work with Xbox one?

I just ordered a 6TB one, hard to understand why the bare drives are so much more expensive, probably to cover the cost of the warranty! I need 6 of them for my new nas I was looking at 8TB WD Reds - at £250 each! for £105 I'm happy to come down to 6Tb. I've only bought one, let's see how it goes before I buy another couple.

I assume these come up quite regularly then?

It's a QNAP TVS-671 incase your interested

These work fine for a PS4/XBOX One S for additional storage?

Maybe some drives were thrown ten feet and not caught. Some were caught. Some weren't thrown ten feet.

Can't you disable the encryption software?

Thanks bud

Well said. Have a look at the comments from the 6tb deal thread, a comment from Shonks gives me the impression that you can with either a secure erase (google how to secure erase a hard drive).

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/book-6tb-recertified-western-digital-western-digital-139-90-inl-delivery-2191658#comment-31575145

Can these drives be opened up and used inside a pc? What are their spin speeds?

I'm not talking about problems erasing the drive. Erasing the drive is trivial once you physically take it out of the enclosure and have it in your PC.

The encryption is built into the controller in the enclosure. The controller lets you communicate with the drive through USB with the PC.

See:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1972732/mybook-essentials-hardware-encrypted.html

I'm saying that if you want to stop using encryption you can't due to the reasons I stated in my previous post.

Hi sorry, possibly a dumb question but which recertified My Book would be better? the New Model 4tb £74.99 or the 'Old' model 4tb £66.99? Can't see a huge amount of difference apart from age and price!! Thanks

Hi sorry, possibly a dumb question but which recertified My Book would be better? the New Model 4tb £74.99 or the 'Old' model 4tb £66.99? Can't see a huge amount of difference apart from age and price!! Thanks