Question Used WD gold. Is it worth it to use?

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Koalacola

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Hy there.
So my story is that i came across an auction with a 2tb WD gold for like 30$ used ofc but labelled by seller as "almost new only used for testing" ofc curiosity got the better of me knowing that this is probably a scam.
The usual used nas drives that one can find on ebay have about 3-4 years run time and 10 to100tb read/writes (if the seller is nice enough to place information what in my case the seller didn't)
This was no exception with almost 4 years of service time but interestingly the drive has no information on read and write data. I have no clue if there is any way to check that or if it was tempered with or if its even possible to do so

Hdd information
https://ibb.co/QQRMXkX

Is it worth to use as a nas drive or a backup storage or just junk?
 
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punkncat

punkncat

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If it seems to be working and healthy I wouldn't have issue using it. Hard to say exactly what for because I sure wouldn't count on it, alone, to be reliable to store things you don't want to lose. If you already have another space for good backups would be a plus.

HDD are in a weird space for me, right now, unless they are quite large, like 8+TB. They are too slow to use for game storage unless it is something like really older titles that you don't play much but want to keep on hand. I don't like the latency on them to use for my work load as all the copy pasta I have to do all day takes extra time, particularly if you are used to doing that on an SSD. 2TB seemed like so much space a few years ago and now you could fill that up pretty quickly.

Over the past several years I had collected a rather large stack of 1 and 2 TB 2.5" HDD out of laptop upgrades and such. Had a whole drawer full of them. I would include them as a supplemental storage drive for old Dell machines and such, but it got to where having (or not) didn't make a whole lot of difference in demand. I eventually opted to tear most of them down, take out the magnets for the fridge, and threw them all away. I keep a few of the newest ones on hand and have some backup on them that isn't critical. I use one for 'Windows Backup' app in an external bay...mostly just "cause" I haven't tossed it yet.
 
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Koalacola

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punkncat said:
If it seems to be working and healthy I wouldn't have issue using it. Hard to say exactly what for because I sure wouldn't count on it, alone, to be reliable to store things you don't want to lose. If you already have another space for good backups would be a plus.

HDD are in a weird space for me, right now, unless they are quite large, like 8+TB. They are too slow to use for game storage unless it is something like really older titles that you don't play much but want to keep on hand. I don't like the latency on them to use for my work load as all the copy pasta I have to do all day takes extra time, particularly if you are used to doing that on an SSD. 2TB seemed like so much space a few years ago and now you could fill that up pretty quickly.

Over the past several years I had collected a rather large stack of 1 and 2 TB 2.5" HDD out of laptop upgrades and such. Had a whole drawer full of them. I would include them as a supplemental storage drive for old Dell machines and such, but it got to where having (or not) didn't make a whole lot of difference in demand. I eventually opted to tear most of them down, take out the magnets for the fridge, and threw them all away. I keep a few of the newest ones on hand and have some backup on them that isn't critical. I use one for 'Windows Backup' app in an external bay...mostly just "cause" I haven't tossed it yet.
Click to expand...
Yeah prob not for a nas but for secondary storage but even that i kinda question. So no idea what to do with it.
Some software would be nice to see if was tempered with or was it really a drive that never seen reads/writes.
Also have a bunch of those laptop hdd-s mostly im using them to store movies on but most are never going to be used for anything else.
Recently i got my hands on a decent pc and started to think about building a nas. This was mostly a test buy to see what to expect from a used good branded one.
Recertified ones are a bit hard to come by cause of shipping and buying new would be just too expensive if one compares them to current ssd prices with the same capacity.
 
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punkncat

punkncat

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I have used various setups for NAS and personally I prefer a Windows based PC purpose built for it.

FreeNAS works well and is (mostly) easy. Configuration required I do a lot of searching and trying. Once it is set up it is pretty trouble free. Linux base.

I currently have a Synology and don't really care for it at all. Parts of its setup seemed counter intuitive to me and I found that it writes in (what is it?) ext I think it's called? Anyway, it is basically a Linux format, so the drives can't be just put into a Windows machine to read if the unit fails. My other particular gripe about this model is that it says it is hot swappable, but every time I have tried ended up breaking something and having to restore data due to it wanting to format, in spite of what the literature says. Most of the problems with are probably PEBCAK.

I am pretty familiar with Windows, how to set up a share, how to administrate the share and rights. The single only thing I don't like about using a purpose built PC as a NAS is the overhead power use and noise. You have this Windows computer doing nothing but sitting there waiting to share a file and otherwise running a bunch of OS that you really aren't utilizing. The super plus side to this, IMO, is if something goes wrong and the machine won't start or work right, you can pull a drive to a caddy or enclosure, and hook right back up to another PC.

My current share enviro is having large drive(s) inside the two most used (PC) machines with all the A/V media I want to share on those. I use Plex with one, and the good old surf and view on the other. I have turned my Synology into archival storage and part of my backup process. It sits unused a good portion of the time, but is slim, quiet and unobtrusive.

.02
 
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Koalacola

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fzabkar said:
It's strange how attribute 0x10, which is currently near rock bottom (3), is present in CrystalDiskInfo but has been omitted by the other SMART tool. :-?

It's also strange that the Current value of attribute 0x10 is lower than the Worst value. :-?
Click to expand...
Thats why for the last day i was searching for a tool that might have the capacity to tell me the written data of wd drives but sadly this does not seem to be possible with this type of drive

From the data you see do you think this drive might be good for anything or should i just skip the pain and dump it in the drawer of electrical void?
 
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Koalacola

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fzabkar said:
WD's warranty checker doesn't show anything for your serial number.

https://support-en.wd.com/app/warrantystatusweb

I also notice that the capacity is reported as 3907024065 sectors. A regular 2TB drive would have 3907029168 sectors. That's a difference of 5103.
Click to expand...
was able to check the serial. The origin of the drive was from another country so the site has spit out the data of it. (void ofc)
As for the sectors i can only imagine that it might be the difference between a regular (blue, green) drive and a nas drive.
 
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