Should You Buy a Used Hard Drive? Used vs New, Price vs Reliability

Hard drives are one of the most debated PC components when it comes to buying new vs used (power supplies take a close second). In this video I discuss the pros and cons of each side and talk about why I am okay with purchasing used hard drives.

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Big thanks to Oafah for making a cameo, be sure to subscribe to his channel and check out his video on the bathtub curve and component life:

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[PandaWorth]

When you see this video pop up in your recommendations twice you know it's gonna be good

[TheRailroad]

Reason No. 1: Dirt cheap
Reason No. 9000: They are still dirt cheap

[marctorres]

The "bath tub curve" has been my experience with hard drives. I've had a couple fail within a month of purchasing new, but if they make it past that they tend to last a long time. I've used a lot of used hard drives and had very few problems with them and usually when they are going bad they warn you with bugginess . I've also bought used and had them still covered by warranty.

[xeagleandhawkx]

i built my pc in may this yr and got a slightly used sandisk SSD off ebay for $65. the seller had a crystaldiskinfo screenshot showing very few hours (forgot how many) and I just checked it and it has 1264 hours! still going strong! thanks danny! i def learned a lot. i bought the SSD without knowing this much about the pros and cons

[meza]

I only buy used hardware, I just don't like paying full price.

[CyberClu]

Lol, that bathtub curve joke was hella funny! Very educational and great info on how to determine what the status of any hard drive is. Excellent for making a well informed decision. Definitely makes me more inclined and more comfortable in purchasing a used drive.

[thebritishindian]

I’ve never bought a 2nd hand HDD, but am now going to do so for the first time ever. This is because HDDs usually last a long time, and with RAID, it just doesn’t matter if they fail. Thanks for showing CrystalDiskMark and the indicators to pay attention to.

[AqwBroders]

Decided to look up my SSD for fun, apperantly it has been in use for over 28000 hours.. which is 1184 days.. while my harddrive has only been on for 7000 hours. I bought the SSD used recently. but it's apperantly 100% good condition which is awesome!

[MrTHEend]

Great video. Could you do an updated setup video with peripherals. I’m interested in knowing how your setup has evolved :)

[Fiterpilot]

I'm on the fence with used primarily because I don't know what the previous owner has done with it or what they've stored on there. If it's a used CPU there is no risk of getting swatted for child porn you didnt know you had.

[ashika]

I definitely liked this video. I haven't really bothered checking my hard drive health before, I can usually tell when items start taking too long to load. But it was great seeing the old hard drives that I've had laying around and thrown in to my workstation still are at Good health! And there is some good info on those SMART Test tools.

[olov]

I use both, the only ways I've had hard drives die are from dropping them, or they die very slowly, with some corruption or odd noises - then you just swap them out and transfer info over. my first SSD was an intel from a laptop on ebay, 5 years later it's going just fine

[Random_Vince]

Yes I do buy used hard drives but I have never checked up on the health their health. I’ll definitely be doing that when I get home today. Thank you for the video as well as for the information on that program. I never knew about it until today.

[abztraktgaming]

Hey Nerd, there’s also a program called Hard Disk Sentinel, it’s not free but it’s 100% worth it for techs like us. It shows the amount of bad/weak sectors, power on time, estimated life left, and can be set to run continuously in the background from startup to monitor and alert you of drive health changes. I use it at home and in the lab at work and I can’t recommend it enough.

[JeagarTech]

Oafah's jokes wreck me every time XD But on-topic, I feel I'm in a similar boat to you here, I'll take anything used to save some cash, but that's because I have done it so much now that it doesn't worry me and I'm diligent about it. This was a nice video to show people a balanced view on the subject, I definitely think used hard drives get a bit more stick than they deserve.

[josepha]

I actually checked the "on hours" of three drives the night before I watched this video. The Toshiba 500 gb hdd has over 42, 000 hours on it. The other hdd are a 120 gb Hitachi with 15, 000 hours & a 320 gb WD with 17, 000 hours. All three report good health, so far.

[eurobudgetgamer]

The only time I bought an "used" HDD was during the last Prime Day at Amazon. I got a 1TB WD Caviar Blue from the Warehouse Deals. However it refused to work when it arrived so I had to return it. I did have a bunch of older HDDs that I got from my brother in law and they're still working fine even today.

[aisle]

Three situations in which I buy used HDs: they come inside of the computer I'm buying, they come as part of a "too good go be true" lot where I consider them a freebie bonus based upon the price/value or everything else, or they're coming from one of the two sources in town that I trust completely to not sell me a dud. Once you pick up a couple of drives off of eBay that have clearly had their SMART data wiped, you get a little more gun shy about the things you're willing to risk money on.

[wmc]

I've been known to buy used disks for things I either have redundancy/backups for, or for applications like my NAS, where there's a lot of them, with a raid, so any given drive failing isn't a concern. Number one thing I'll say is that, when you get a drive, don't even ask. Don't even look. Just wipe it before all else. DBAN is a great tool for this, and free for non-commercial use. Alternatively, talk to the IT guy at work. I know at all the places I've worked, we had enterprise licenses of fancy disk wiping software, and since we weren't charged by the disk... things happened, people got their old hard drives wiped before they disposed of them... everyone was a little safer and happier.

TLDR: Wipe your disks when they come into your possession, and before they leave your possession.

[geezergeek]

Solid video... good comments.
Experiences will drive how we think.
I have had some sour experiences with used drives, and so,
as cheap as drives are per gig today, I would just as soon get the new drives.
As you say... not a guarantee... but at least I am not buying someone elses junk...
a drive someone else noticed was starting to show its age...
I think (unproven opinion) most who have a known good drive
would be likely to hold onto it as a backup / extra storage.
As you note... YMMV.
Good vid!