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Buying used drives from Amazon Warehouse
(beehaw.org)
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this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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datahoarder
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First thing to do is check SMART data to see if there are any fails. Then looking at usage hours, spin ups, pre-fails / old-age to get a general idea how worn the drive is and for how long you could make use of it depending on risk acceptance.
If there are already several clusters relocated and multiple spin up fails, I'd probably return the drive.
Apart from all the reliability stuff: I'd check the content of the drive (with a safe machine) - if it wasn't wiped you might want to notify the previous owner, so she can change her passwords or notify customers about the leak (in compliance to local regulations) etc. - even if you don't exploit that data, the merchants/dealers in the chain might already have.
I will just paste my standard procedure when I onboard any new (or used) drive: Everybody has their own ~~skin care~~ HDD check routine. This is mine:
I first check the SMART status with CrystalDisk, after this a short smart test, full surface check with Macrorit, full h2testw run, CrystalDiskMark, and then I check with CrystalDisk once again if anything besides power on hours did change.
Will take some days for a large drive but in terms of work hours we talk about less than 5 minutes and it covers pretty much anything without being too excessive.