Question Buying an HDD from Aliexpress ?

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Dr. Tam

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Oct 19, 2023
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hello i see now sales on hard drives on aliexpress and its almost half price of what they are selling at locally..
I have bought from this seller before (Hitachi Enterprise i think) 4tb hard drive with like 7 hours of on time. The smart data probably have been reset.. and the year of manufacturing has been covered by warranty sticker (i peeled it off and seen its made in 2014).

The drive was working great honestly and i even dropped it on the floor (it had plastic shell cover) and the hard drive is still working. I wanted to ask should i buy from this seller again? i want to buy a 16TB drive, I think it's a Toshiba enterprise drive and i heard that enterprise drives are the most reliable.. and the price is fine too, i would like any opinions.

This is what i want to buy, i asked the seller to send me 16tb one offer he sent me this (its diffrent shop but maybe he owns both of them?) https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...on.0.0.5e793e5f5cTkzW&gatewayAdapt=4itemAdapt

This is what i bought before: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005730428812.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.0.0.65dbt5AXt5AXZt&gps-id=pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40000.327270.0&scm_id=1007.40000.327270.0&scm-url=1007.40000.327270.0&pvid=c42cef8c-221a-44c3-85e1-18c13ac5458f&_t=gps-id😛cDetailTopMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40000.327270.0,pvid:c42cef8c-221a-44c3-85e1-18c13ac5458f,tpp_buckets:668#2846#8108#1977&pdp_npi=4@dis!ILS!281.47!208.27!!!71.37!!@2141113616996933569044796ec5c6!12000034144300324!rec!IL!3472771474!
 
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Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

From your posts stylization, you seem to be sold on the idea of buyign an HDD from them. Hoenstly it's your money, you shouldn't need to jump on here and hear someone say what you want to hear.

Just an FYI, if you rely on these drives to store mission critical data, I'd opt for a local retailer, ones that have warranty on them and ones that are susceptible to shipping damage. That being said, what sort of use cases scenarios are you going to tax the HDD with?
 
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I will be honest i think i just want to put everything on this hard drive from all of my pcs and external drives and make it off site cold back up i think, i have many 4tb drives around 5 and im thinking to start selling them, i have alot of drives in diffrent capacities aswell, right now my max capacity drives are 8 tb wd golds 2x and i think i might setup proper backup with them eventually (maybe even raid 1)
 
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GalacticBear said:
I will be honest i think i just want to put everything on this hard drive from all of my pcs and external drives and make it off site cold back up i think, i have many 4tb drives around 5 and im thinking to start selling them, i have alot of drives in diffrent capacities aswell, right now my max capacity drives are 8 tb wd golds 2x and i think i might setup proper backup with them eventually (maybe even raid 1)
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Right now i filled 1 of these 8tb and i wanna use it for day today backup eventually so i was thinking to buy this one from aliexpress dump everything away on this large drive
 
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GalacticBear said:
So what is? Please can you elaborate?
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A RAID 1 is only good for continued uptime, in the event of a physical drive fail.

It does nothing for all the other ways of data loss.
Accidental format, deletion, corruption, malware, etc, etc....a RAID array does nothing for those.

If you were running a webstore, where unexpected downtime == lost sales, then maybe a RAID 1 would be a good idea. Along with a real backup situation.
The RAID would let the system limp along on the remaining drive, until such time as you can schedule downtime for replacement and rebuilding the array.

In the consumer space, a RAID volume is rarely necessary.

In fact, it may give the user a false sense of security, and then they ignore doing real data safety.
Have seen that here many many times.
 
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USAFRet said:
A RAID 1 is only good for continued uptime, in the event of a physical drive fail.

It does nothing for all the other ways of data loss.
Accidental format, deletion, corruption, malware, etc, etc....a RAID array does nothing for those.

If you were running a webstore, where unexpected downtime == lost sales, then maybe a RAID 1 would be a good idea. Along with a real backup situation.
The RAID would let the system limp along on the remaining drive, until such time as you can schedule downtime for replacement and rebuilding the array.

In the consumer space, a RAID volume is rarely necessary.

In fact, it may give the user a false sense of security, and then they ignore doing real data safety.
Have seen that here many many times.
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Ye that sounds like me.. , i just realised i replied from my other account.. yeah so i wanna learn how to proper backup. And i do want to have large backup with literaly every file from my many pcs on one drive off site. That is why im interested about this aliexpress drive. The thing is what do i do now with the 2 x 8tb drives
 
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GalacticBear said:
Ye that sounds like me.. , i just realised i replied from my other account.. yeah so i wanna learn how to proper backup. And i do want to have large backup with literaly every file from my many pcs on one drive off site. That is why im interested about this aliexpress drive. The thing is what do i do now with the 2 x 8tb drives
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The basic concept is 3-2-1.
At least 3 copies, on at least 2 different media, at least 1 offsite or otherwise inaccessible.

Read some here:

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com

My personal flow is at the top. Somewhat changed since then, but thats the basics.
 
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USAFRet said:
The basic concept is 3-2-1.
At least 3 copies, on at least 2 different media, at least 1 offsite or otherwise inaccessible.

Read some here:

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...
forums.tomshardware.com forums.tomshardware.com
Click to expand...
well i want to start with the off site backup 1st. i want to off load all of my 8tb drive in to a larger drive add around 2 more tb of the remaining data, then i wanna start "cleaning" and then i wanna put proper use to my 2 8 tb drives and maybe set it to be actual weekly backup auto backup or something like that. i also have few old desktop pcs maybe i can use them too for backup?

the thing is im not that advanced in terms of backuping and stuff like that, i do own Nas with 2tb i own DAS too and 3 desktops and 2 laptops. i have many 4 tb drives that are empty and alot more smaller drives by smaller i mean (from 256 gb to 2tb)

i am normal home user.. with lot of extra uneeded stuff so i wanna start proper back up and sell stuff that i dont need..
 
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i do want one big drive so i can put everything on it without worring.. im thinking of making it offsite or maybe to be actual backup and the wd golds 8tb to be off site at least one of them..
 
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Dr. Tam said:
i do want one big drive so i can put everything on it without worring.. im thinking of making it offsite or maybe to be actual backup and the wd golds 8tb to be off site at least one of them..
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You're the only one that knows what you have and where it is.

Map out where everything is, where it will go, and how to recover in time of need.

Also, think Full drive backups. Trying to do it selectively, you will almost certainly forget a folder or two.
 
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i know i will get in to it all and i will set proper backup i promise. but my quesstion remain the same should i get that aliexpress drive, or pay alot more on seagate 18tb exo? also many normal consumer seagate drives failed on me before im not fan of the company, but i heard the exos are good
 
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Dr. Tam said:
i will be honest with you i feel the same way, but here where i live its almost triple the price for brand new.. thats why im confused
Click to expand...

and just how do you suspect they can charge so much less? my data back-up is not going to rely on something i got as cheap as possible with no idea where it came from, how old it is, how it was used and so on and so on.

you already know this, yet the allure of cheap is pulling you into the darkness. RUN BACK TO THE LIGHT AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!!! lol

buy from a reputable source that has new stock and a warranty.
 
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Ok i have an update, i asked on a group on facebook marketplace and somebody here (i belive is owner of a computer shop), said to me that he is selling wd gold 10tb with 700 days on it for like 100$ he told me he is offloading it off a server. Now my quesstion is, should i get it?
 
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All of my important files are on 2 4tb ssds so im not worried, at least he was forward with me and didnt hide anything.. like the seller on Ali.. to be honest i think the price is fair and i can get it tomorrow, maybe in this case i should take 2 of them and actually raid 1 just to make sure 1 wont fail? I dont know honestly, i wanted large drive to be off site backup.. but im confused so idk what to do now..
 
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Dr. Tam said:
All of my important files are on 2 4tb ssds so im not worried, at least he was forward with me and didnt hide anything.. like the seller on Ali.. to be honest i think the price is fair and i can get it tomorrow, maybe in this case i should take 2 of them and actually raid 1 just to make sure 1 wont fail? I dont know honestly, i wanted large drive to be off site backup.. but im confused so idk what to do now..
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For me, the only time I might buy "Not brand new", is refurb from the manufacturer, with a warranty from them.

To each his own.
 
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USAFRet said:
For me, the only time I might buy "Not brand new", is refurb from the manufacturer, with a warranty from them.

To each his own.
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Ye obviously you are right but if i wanna buy brand new drive i would go for the seagate 18tb because its the most beneficial for the price here and had 5 years warranty, but for the price of brand new drive i can buy 3 used here..
 
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Dr. Tam said:
Ye obviously you are right but if i wanna buy brand new drive i would go for the seagate 18tb because its the most beneficial for the price here and had 5 years warranty, but for the price of brand new drive i can buy 3 used here..
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The basic thing is....don't put all your eggs in this one basket.
This drive may be perfectly fine.

Similarly, a brand new drive may fail at any moment.
This is why the 3-2-1 concept rules.

And kudos for being proactive with your data and backups.
 
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