Are USED Hard Drives Worth it...? (The Tech YES Buyer's Guide)

Used Hard Drives for me... are a crucial element of a Used PC, but they are often not spoken about... really anywhere.. So today I am breaking it down from start to finish, how to spot good and dogy drives, and once I get them how to test for failures in relation to power on time and error scans.

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#used #tech #howto

[techyescity]

What's your experience with Used HDDs? Let us know below!

[justinbussell]

The only time you want to hear those HDD noises is on Floopytron's songs.

[sburton]

It seems like hard drives are designed to last for a long time. My oldest Toshiba laptop's hard drive is the original 4.1 GB from 1998. Still works fine today with no bad sectors at all even after 21 years.

[savingstumps]

I love how the hdds you show that don't work are seagates. I just found a hdd making that clicking noise. of course it was a seagate. lol.

[Flo-cgjl]

my Hitachi 1tb hdd is from 2009 and has 51000 Hours of workingtime
and its still in my main pc
edit: i make regular backups of all my drives (old/new/hdd/sdd)

[tylerlogsdon]

New SSD, used HDD

Games aren't sensitive data

[Jonagold]

Please make a video on how you get rid of your broken or useless components. I really would like to give more awareness on getting rid of stuff without making the environment a trash-bin..

[WinningEmpire]

My experience with used HDDs: They're fun. Just assume they're gonna break anytime so only put worthless stuff on there. I like to use GeForce experience highlights to save every singe kill I get on my hard drive :D

[Meerlu]

More important than power on time is power cycle count. I never spin down or turn off my HDDS, if i can help it. I have many 12+ year old (spin time) drives still humming along.

[fallenkeith]

I got a 8 TB enterprise HDD off ebay for $60. No issues with it and hardly any power-on hours...so I would say yes, they are worth it :)

At least if you find a good seller anyways+being able to return is always nice if something goes bad

[owokemosan]

Pro tip: make sure to turn off the quick scan option in HD tune cuz the results from the quick scan is not accurate.

[XavierXonora]

8 years ago I got 3 2TB drives at 50 aud each. They're all still spinning to this day

[xxcrckzzxx]

Pro Tip: Download Crystal Disk Info, set it to "Start with Windows" and "Show in the Tray". It will warn you as soon as something unusual happens with your drive or if its about to fail. Helped me out a few times now.

[AlexanderKalish]

Sometimes when HHD doesn't work I dismount the PCB and clean all the contacts and put it back again and it works. Sometimes, not always.

[gilramos]

I bought a stack of used 10x2tb external seagate drives for $8 each (guy at flea market) and shucked them/tested. They contained personal information from a beauty supply company which included SSN's, Accounting information and personal emails... Wiped those immediately. They were apparently backup drives.

[bencarter]

I have had great experience with used HDDs here in the UK recently. I like to buy in bulk, 10x 1Tb Seagate ST1000DM003 all from 2016 for £100 shipped in a segmented hard drive shipping box all in sealed anti static bags. Cheap and very cheerful. Before that 5x WD gold for £40

[pdamasco]

Another great tip for you or PC builders. Use something like Seagate Seatools. It's free and has a lot of the features of HD Tune. You can even run the built in self test on the drives from a bootable USB or inside windows. My favorite tool to asses HDD and SSD health is Hard Disk Sentinel (not free, but absolutely a great tool).

[Marco_Onyxheart]

I've sold bad drives myself, without any ill intent. I did reimburse those drives, but yeah. I'm a techy person, but even techy people don't always know much about bad drives. It's very easy to buy or sell bad drives.

[NotSoCrazyNinja]

I once got a cheapo used drive off eBay. It was shockingly high hours, but it ran just fine with no issues. Still have it in my secondary computer.

[WouterVerbruggen]

Good tips! Being mechanical devices wherein small misalignments can be disastrous it's definitely important to take a second good look at one. I'd like to add one thing: If you think something is wrong with only the PCB on the underside of the drive, don't bother trying to replace it. There's certain information on it regarding the physical properties of the platter in the drive. The chance that even a 100% identical model drive's PCB will work (without problems) is very slim