datahoarder
Who are we?
We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.
-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread
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I've bought several used/refurbished drives from Amazon. Always HGST. I have not had any issue with them yet and some have been going for 4-5 years.
There are caveats though. The ones I bought have had the smart data wiped... So there is no way to know exactly how many hours they really have on them. Also the label is replaced so there no way to see manufactured year. I have no idea how old or beat up these things really are.
I don't put anything important on them. Just backups.