Indeed.OP, something I would point out in regard to buying a (less expensive) new drive. Many of the external USB style backup drives can be purchased cheaper than the drive that comes in them. The practice is called "shucking" and is totally worthwhile way to save some bucks. A word of warning though. ABSOLUTELY plug the drive in and check for operation BEFORE you take the enclosure apart. Once it's open, it's yours regardless.
I will dedicate my HDD to a backup when i get an ssd, And the used one for another backup.You can try to evaluate "good health", but good health can change to dead in seconds for no known reason.
The same can be said of a brand new drive.
The defense would be to have 2 backups.
I suppose the choice depends on the state of your finances and how much cheaper the used drive is.
Automated, tested, and know how to recover in time of need.I will dedicate my HDD to a backup when i get an ssd, And the used one for another backup.
But a good health one can fail. I once had a 1tb no bad sectors or anything. FAILED on me the next week since purchase. Got a replacement HDD though and it's working.A good health one.
I do know that.Yes but make sure you also backup to the cloud like me with college work. I got both cloud and external storage for backing up important data.
But any drive can fail.
Of my last 3 dead drives:While people will say "device X can fail at any point in time for no apparent reason," statistically speaking devices tend to follow a bathtub curve when it comes to failure rates. That is, the device has a high chance to fail in the first 30 or so days. After that, it dramatically drops and stays that way for several years, in which case the failure rate starts creeping back up.
The low point in the bathtub curve tends to be several years, assuming regular usage. So if the drive is around 1 year old, it should be fine to use for a while.