Amazon has a “Visit the Amazon Renewed Store” section.
Are they simply returns?
Or are they failed drives that were refurbished by the manufacturer?
Has anyone purchased these drives? What was your experience?
Assuming the drives are as good as new and have the full manufacturer’s warranty, then the price is as low as I have seen in over a year.
Some reviews claim DOA. But that is true for any product. And if Amazon takes it back (and I imagine that they would), then it is no different than purchasing a new drive that was DOA.
Here’s one more link for $241.99 with many more ratings / reviews:
From reading various descriptions and FAQ’s about Renewed, it seems like the drives could be anything.
At Amazon Renewed, you can discover and buy like-new refurbished products that have been professionally inspected and tested to work and look like new by Amazon-qualified and performance-managed suppliers. The inspection and testing process typically includes a full diagnostic test, replacement of any defective parts, and a thorough cleaning process carried out by the supplier, or by Amazon.
A reviewer claims they are OEM drives and do not carry a Seagate warranty. The first drive link includes the following point:
Backed by a 2-year seller warranty, preburn-in tested to ensure no bad sectors, up to 50 power-on hours
The second one says:
Manufacturer recertified and backed by a 2-year seller warranty from point of purchase
It seems like these could be anything and you need to carefully read each item’s description in full. “Manufacturer recertified” probably does not mean refurbished, but the difference between these two drives is that in one case, Amazon’s team cleaned and tested the drive, and for the other, it was through Seagate.
The first one says “up to 50 power-on hours” and a reviewer said the drives they got only had 20 power on hours, so maybe these ones were straight up returns. Not sure what you might get with the second link since it doesn’t give that level of detail on the conditions.
If Amazon is providing a 2-year seller warranty, they’ll probably honor it but I don’t think you’ll have any warranty support from Seagate on these.
Over the last year I’ve bought some drives from Amazon Warehouse, and always made sure they are sold by Amazon not some over seller. These appear to be customer returns, I’m certain they are not checked. One had the case poorly reassembled, the USB lead didn’t even fit, it has a lower capacity drive in it as well. The last one I bought was sold as an 18TB, the box had 6TB on it, and it was a 6TB drive, others have been OK. I got full refunds on both drives. I know one person that got a faulty drive, sent it back, bough another a few weeks later and received the exact same drive back!
I’m never buying anything important through amazon renewed, those are simply returns and amazon doesn’t do even basic checks. For internal drives, weither new or refurbished, the packaging from amazon has been horrible with no padding and HDD floating in cardboard. Would not recommend.
Get a white label deal, if you can afford it the bulk purchase : it’s the best option for cheap internal drives.
Just an FYI, if these X18 are similar to X16 I got new for my home NAS then they will be very loud! Honestly I would not recommend them for home use as you would be very annoyed with the constant clicking of the head. The loudest drives I’ve ever owned.
EDIT:
These may be returns from customers who did not like the noise. I got my new X16s from B&H and was really surprised how loud they are but did not worry about it as I’ve seen reviews mentioning it and my server is in a closet so don’t care too much about that noise. If you plan to have these sitting somewhere in an office next to you then I would seriously reconsider. These are meant for data center so low noise is not a big priority there
Yes all my 4x X16 14TB are loud and it’s the head which seams to slam against the side frequently that made me think they were defective at first but then I realized that this was the same thing that others were reporting.
In my opinion IronWolfs are way way overpriced and I guess manufacturer feels they can get away with it because they are selling them directly to consumers. I look at the spec sheet when purchasing HDDs for 24x7 operation and to me IronWolfs seam like a standard HDD with NAS firmware vs Exos are truly meant for 24x7 opperation. I cannot comment on current line of IronWolfs but based on older Seagate NAS HDDs (3TB & 4TB) I still have they are much quieter. Just look at the spec sheets and you will see the BIG difference between them while IronWolf Pros are probably closer to Exos in specs but can cost 2x or more of what you would pay for Exos which is just a highway robbery.
Most of them ship from manufacturer’s factory in Vietnam/Thailand