Beware when buying USED Western Digital Enterprise HDD from eBay

[Kiriakos GR]

Back in time 2017, when new generation of Western Digital Enterprise HDD shown in the market (128MB cache), they did cost allot.
Most consumers of Desktop PC, they were forced to experiment with SSD solutions instead, mostly because of the lower cost.

Fewer stayed faithful at the Number 1 golden rule, there is nothing more reliable than platters.

Christmas holidays - New Year holidays, this is a period that most of us we stop thinking tools and work, and we pay more attention at computer part upgrades.
December of 2023 there is something strange happening at eBay all around the globe.

There is a wide availability of USED Western Digital Enterprise HDD at 20% of their price as New ??
I did start an investigation, and discovered that many take apart  NAS HDD Storage boxes, inside are several Western Digital Enterprise HDD, most of them are 1TB and much fewer are higher than that.

Most of these sellers does not wish to inform the buyer,  that these HDD has been used under significant workload, and while operating hours seems fewer, these HDD were stressed much more, within a poorly ventilated NAS box.

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Here comes a very useful find that I am going to donate to our society. 
Its not free fish, but rather a valuable hint.

Western Digital Enterprise HDD these sold for NAS box, they came with different revision of firmware than what retail HDD are sold with.
For example,  WD Gold series drive of xTB capacity, retail HDD has a specific firmware that stays identical for ever.
WD Gold series these sold to NAS manufacturer they have a different firmware.

If you succeed finding what is retail firmware for the HDD drive that you are interested for?   Then you can ask any potential seller of what is the firmware version at the used drive?
Any different firmware from the retail = HDD coming from dismantled  NAS box.

I have still faith at cyclic economy, used products are not trash, but this case it is a different one.
What most people do,  when NAS box with four or eight HDD starts failing = two HDD failing or making weird mechanical noises,  they dismantle the NAS box and selling all still working HDD.
This explains of why you see nowadays piles of listed opportunities, so you to get Enterprise HDD  starting from 22 Euro.           

I would trust more, any seller with the offering of Crystal Disk Info report this present at his eBay listing.   

[overvolt]

I did some homework of my own too 
HDD with 64MB of cache they are much older hardware.

So we need to find an innocent home user who owns a used retail Enterprise HDD.
Not that easy to find in our times, when the ones dismantling networking systems they are flooding eBay with their listings.

Good luck mate.