[Refurb] Western Digital WD 16TB Ultrastar DC HC550 SATA HDD $271.15 ($261.15 with Zip) Delivered @ Metrocom AU via Amazon

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[Refurb] Western Digital WD 16TB Ultrastar DC HC550 SATA HDD $271.15 ($261.15 with Zip) Delivered @ Metrocom AU via AmazonAffiliate
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snep on 20/03/2025 - 16:16 amazon.com.au (996 clicks)
Last edited 20/03/2025 - 16:26 by 1 other user
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Cheaper than current eastdigital refurb prices for equivalent disks.

Not quite as good as the previous metrocom deal, but you do get next day delivery, 12 month warranty and straightforward change of mind returns if you don't like the look of its hours/cycles.

I believe the Zip deal should apply but don't have an account to check at checkout.

Price History at C CamelCamelCamel.
This is part of Amazon Big Smile Sale for 2025
Computing Big Smile Sale Computer Component Hard Drive SATA Western Digital

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Comments

  • cloudie9 on 20/03/2025 - 16:20
    +5

    Its by Metrocom btw, not Amazon renewed

    • snep on 20/03/2025 - 16:22

      Cheers, updated

    • Tbargain12 on 20/03/2025 - 16:35
      +1

      "#1 Best Seller in Amazon Renewed"

      • snep on 20/03/2025 - 16:39

        Yeah I was also tricked by that, but looking further:

        Ships from Amazon
        Sold by Metrocom AU

        • Tbargain12 on 20/03/2025 - 16:40

          Does it matter though? I've asked them before about differences in ships from/sold by, and they've said that since it's shipped by them, they're responsible for it much the same.

          Unless you mean Amazon Renewed specifically have a better "quality" guarantee?

          • BillyG687 on 20/03/2025 - 17:30

            @Tbargain12: Amazon Renewed should be Amazon themselves with refurbed hardware - I doubt Amazon Renewed is refurbing harddrives even from AWS, they'd ship those back to the vendor who then ships them back to Seagate/WD etc.

            Ships from Amazon - the stock is held at an Amazon Warehouse
            Sold by - this is actually the company you have to deal with for warranty issues and check where they source their stock from and understand the quality.

            • sirreginald on 20/03/2025 - 22:17

              @BillyG687: From the Amazon Renewed page:

              What is Amazon Renewed?
              Products listed on Amazon Renewed have been inspected and tested by a performance managed supplier, who may be qualified manufacturers or specialised third-party refurbishers. The suppliers must meet strict criteria to be able to sell on Amazon Renewed and meet ongoing performance targets.

              This HDD is also the first item listed there currently, so it should qualify.

  • Aureus on 20/03/2025 - 16:20
    +3

    It's tempting, but "Ships from Amazon". I always hear Amazon doesn't package HDD correctly. Has this changed?

    • Arnor on 20/03/2025 - 16:31
      +15

      I've had 3 HDD from amazon this year and all 3 have been packed average and badly. I took video of one box, was crushed.
      2 drives were refurbs, one has already returned faulty. Another was a NEW EXO18 16tb which i am about to return for being really loud and 17% health

    • ivanavich on 20/03/2025 - 16:32

      All of these drives are shipped in sealed electrostatic bags, surrounded by bubble wrap. Well packaged.

    • freefall101 on 20/03/2025 - 17:21
      +6

      Amazon never packs stuff well, last time I bought a bunch of glass Tupperware there was a token pice of brown paper, the rest loose (and broken by arrival) in the box.

      Returned it and they did the exact same thing again.

      Wouldn’t trust them with a hard drive at all.

  • MauTauAja on 20/03/2025 - 16:27

    Refurbished - Excellent
    $271.15

  • ivanavich on 20/03/2025 - 16:31
    +3

    Drives are good - just make sure you check write cache works when you receive them.

    • skysurfer on 20/03/2025 - 16:35
      +1

      Thanks for the tip, is it easy for you to say how to do that? If not I'll search. Cheers

    • tenpercent on 20/03/2025 - 16:37
      +1

      How do you do this?

      • c64 on 20/03/2025 - 16:45
        +7

        on a c64 in linux:
        hdparm -W $dev # check status
        hdparm -W1 $dev # enable
        hdparm -W0 $dev # disable

        • Arnor on 20/03/2025 - 16:50
          +3

          10 print "you're showing your age"

          • c64 on 20/03/2025 - 17:08
            +6

            @Arnor: ?SYNTAX ERROR

            10 PRINT "you're showing your age"

            lower case characters in keywords are not accepted

            • Arnor on 20/03/2025 - 17:41
              +5

              @c64: That's me showing my age and forgetting correct syntax.

          • Mikael on 20/03/2025 - 17:56
            +1

            @Arnor: 20 goto 10
            Something like that.

  • ileonid on 20/03/2025 - 16:45
    +12

    I bought one from Metrocom Amazon last month, the hard drive already had 28900 hours power on time, my expectation was max 18000 hours for an excellent condition refurbished HDD, but nearly 29000 hours just too much. Returned.

    • Viospeed on 20/03/2025 - 16:55
      +9

      Yeah those are some gnarly hours and have been nuked with Chia mining 24/7.

      • Wayne7497 on 20/03/2025 - 16:58
        -5

        Rubbish

        • Viospeed on 20/03/2025 - 17:05

          Do you work for Metrocom?

          • eug on 20/03/2025 - 17:13

            @Viospeed: How do you know it was used for Chia mining?

    • Nom on 20/03/2025 - 17:08
      +1

      One way to look at it, is 18,000 hours is only 2 years of use. And nobody is going to be doing scheduled replacements on drives that are only 2 years old - the vast majority of pro-active replacements will be over 3 years old.
      29,000 hours is probably normal for server-pulls, and possibly even lower than normal !

    • RiseAndRuin on 20/03/2025 - 21:03
      +1

      That's what many of the reviews state.

  • Viospeed on 20/03/2025 - 16:47
    +18

    Just a heads up Metrocom sell used mining hardware. They even disclosed this on their Ebay store listings for their used GPUs. These drives were most likely Chia hammered.

    • Tbargain12 on 20/03/2025 - 16:50
      +2

      Yeah I mean any time you see someone selling 5x of the same old GPU, chances are they're mining hardware.

      • c64 on 20/03/2025 - 17:11
        +1

        some of the drive stats other people have posted indicated quite large read totals. i'm not exactly sure what is normal for a drive after many years

      • xrailgun on 20/03/2025 - 17:16
        +3

        You got it backwards. Chia mining absolutely destroys HDDs. GPU mining is/was much friendlier to the hardware.

        I would happily buy ex-mining GPUs in good conditions and price, but not Chia HDDs. It's simply not possible.

        • freefall101 on 20/03/2025 - 17:28
          +3

          It smashes the ssd for creating the plot, but once the plot is created it shouldn’t do anything to the HDD it’s sitting on.

          • xrailgun on 20/03/2025 - 19:11
            +2

            @freefall101: disks generally have to be spinning 24/7 because Chia mining does a LOT of reads (unlike what Wayne says). reads generally don't cause as much wear as writes, sure, but it's far from being nothing.

            • freefall101 on 20/03/2025 - 19:42
              +1

              @xrailgun: It does a lot of reads but it's not reading much data, when I had a chia farm it was doing less than a couple of GB of reads a day.

              So it's not completely idle, but it's doing less work than a data centre drive would be doing. Dunno where you got "absolutely destroys", it's doing really minimal work.

  • bcYield on 20/03/2025 - 17:15
    +4

    How a hard drive is renewed? By dusting? Once it ages, it's aged unless they change the disk. What am I missing?

    • c64 on 20/03/2025 - 17:19
      +5

      the price is renewed each time they resell it :)

    • xrailgun on 20/03/2025 - 17:19
      +5

      Truth is, they're not. Actual refurbishing is far too expensive to make sense. 99.99% of "refurb" drives just underwent a basic check by a seller, who take into account the cost of doing business of some % of expected returns/warranty claims. For most consumers, this is good enough to last about 3-5 years for basically half the price.

      • bcYield on 20/03/2025 - 19:23

        to last about 3-5 years for basically half the price

        I know a used enterprise grade hhd is good value and can last longer even tho this is only 1y warranty. 3-5y is expected but on us if something is wrong. If considering this is $540 new and saves 1/2 the price, I'd get a new NAS drive either IronWolf or WD with 5y warranty for under $400 during the sale period.

    • viper8548 on 20/03/2025 - 17:19
      +4

      refurb hdd = dusting 😂

      • johnno07 on 20/03/2025 - 17:32
        +3

        Pull it out, blow into the contacts, whack it back in and flick the start switch on.

        • McFly on 21/03/2025 - 00:35

          Whenever I buy a refurb I always check it's been done properly.
          That means making sure each platter has been given a good going over with WD40 - should be able to see your reflection in them after that.
          Refill it with some floaty balloons and you're good to go!

  • QuickdraW on 20/03/2025 - 17:22

    what are these like for noise? currently have 8tb exos and notice them much more than the 4tb reds I came from.

    • zan5hin on 20/03/2025 - 17:26
      +1

      I find them chattery in my NAS But the price difference to get some theoretically quieter brand new WD red pro was too much.

      I bought some long network cables and moved the NAS into the cupboard at the entrance of my apartment and when I close the door, I can't really hear them from the living space, bedroom.

      It's a 1 bedroom so my bedroom door is 3 steps away. If the hallway/cupboard door is open, I can hear them.

    • metalslaw on 20/03/2025 - 18:55
      +1

      One thing you will notice with these particular drives is that they do periodic PWL periods. If a drive is idle for 24 hours or so, this will kick in for a few minutes. Sounds like a loud hum/buzz.

      PWL is “Preventive Wear Leveling”, and is a periodic head sweep to distribute lubricant and prevent wear in a particular place if lubricant were to build up in one spot.

      I was worried about this being an issue with the drives, but after having several from metrocom, with no issues, it's no longer a worry.

      Other than that, they have a louder than usual seek sound/vibration, so may not be suitable for a computer case sitting on the same desk as your monitor/kbd/mouse.

      If you can get it off the table, or onto another table or bookcase, it will remove the vibration and most of the sound.

  • zan5hin on 20/03/2025 - 17:24
    +3

    I bought 5x from East Digital for $256 each in January.

    Surprised the price went up.

    • Budginator on 20/03/2025 - 17:30

      What was the condition/hours of the x5 units you bought? No issues?

  • awaiko on 20/03/2025 - 17:37

    Apologies for my ignorance here, are these too noisy to go into a regular computer?

    • ozmma on 20/03/2025 - 18:04
      +1

      Noise is subjective, but they were annoying to me. I once had the pc case on my desk, and HDD seeking noise was disturbing. Plus, I can feel the vibrations on my wrist rested on the desk. It makes the most noise when it spins up from sleep/power off. Some may not be bothered by this.

      • awaiko on 20/03/2025 - 18:49

        Thanks, much appreciated.

  • iguana on 20/03/2025 - 17:45

    Why would you buy a second hard mechanical hard disk drive?

    • smokenmirraz on 20/03/2025 - 17:47
      +7

      $

    • avinit86 on 20/03/2025 - 18:09
      +1

      Backup my main NAS with these
      Only get turned on once a year

      • eug on 20/03/2025 - 18:15
        +1

        You only backup once a year?

        • avinit86 on 20/03/2025 - 18:56
          +1

          Media yeah
          Important stuff is cloud

        • McFly on 21/03/2025 - 00:38

          I'm more shocked by their other statement:

          Only get turned on once a year

          Poor avinit86!

  • Pest85 on 20/03/2025 - 18:00
    +3

    I bought one from Metrocom back in Feb 2024 (for $239).
    It had ~15000 hours on it back than.

    Using it form Plex movies, no issues.

  • trevor99 on 20/03/2025 - 18:23

    Ultrastars are great but I don't want something hammered that's been replaced.

    With coupons and cashback you should be able to get something new for around $300:
    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005189614515.html?

    • drmac on 20/03/2025 - 18:28
      +8

      Unfortunately, these won't be new, they will be SMART reset, so they look like new. A couple of the reviews show this too.

      • trevor99 on 20/03/2025 - 20:11

        So are there any sellers at all on AliExpress selling actual new ones?

    • Blitzfx on 20/03/2025 - 18:55

      Yeah, I was going to comment what's the point of buying these secondhand when the Ultrastar brand is touted as reliable.

    • Larsson on 20/03/2025 - 19:01
      +2

      “New” like east digital “new” drives:

      https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/1il1kyb/seagat…

  • Larsson on 20/03/2025 - 19:02
    -1

    Man really wanted a new 4 wide vdev, but dang can’t stomach such subpar (in terms of time in service) product and still so expensive…

  • nuker on 20/03/2025 - 19:14

    Returned mine, bought half a year ago from Amazon / Metrocom. The only HDD I ever returned. Noises were not right, too loud, periodic on idle. I have few identical ones I got elsewhere.

  • glyptothek on 20/03/2025 - 19:15
    -1

    Buy from Serverpartdeals.com Much larger capacities available at reasonable costs/postage rapid from USA, refurbished by WD and Seagate - 5 22-24 tb drives purchases past 2 years from WD and Seagate for NAS and Desktop and TB3 WD enclosure and not as problem! And they often have sales too!

    • CyberMurning on 20/03/2025 - 19:29
      +1

      Anything 12-16tb cheaper than this deal? I dont need too big.

    • Switchblade88 on 20/03/2025 - 19:54
      +6

      $AUD338 for the same 16Tb HC550 and not including $AUD229 minimum shipping so no, not reasonable.

      At least East Digital is free shipping and guaranteed good quality packing.

      • glyptothek on 20/03/2025 - 20:14
        +1

        Shipping i see is 114 AUD
        Last September bought 2 x WD Ultrastar 20 TB refurbished for USD 530 and post was USD 45
        Last November bought a Ironwolf Pro 20 tb Seagate recertified for AUS 369 and postage was AUD 56
        Packages always well boxed and delivery from USA within a week
        Seems maybe they've hiked postage 2025. They often have sales
        If you look at NAS Compares there is a Seagate scandal at the mo where resellers re selling ex Chia drives as new and/or refubished with 10s of thousands of hours of use so caveat emptor
        That said I did buy one of these 16TB Ultrastars from metrocom via Ebay in 2021 and replaced 12tb with 16tb in a G-Drive Thunderbolt 3 for AUD 269 and have never had a problem with it Put the 12TB Ultrastar that came inside GDrive inside a desktop for storage

        • CyberMurning on 20/03/2025 - 20:44
          +3

          Thanks for the info but aud 100 shipping is wayyyyy to high maybe if buying 15 drives

  • creesy on 20/03/2025 - 21:23
    +1

    What is the performance of these drives like? Suitable for an unraid server (plex, sonarr, radarr etc etc.)

    Always get confused with HDDs (hmr, helium etc)

    • c64 on 20/03/2025 - 21:29
      +1

      WUH721816ALE6L4

      they are (were) flagship enterprise drives, flogged to death. "H" in the model number means helium

      • creesy on 20/03/2025 - 21:43
        +1

        When you say flogged to death…you mean these refurbs should be avoided?

        • c64 on 20/03/2025 - 22:05
          -1

          flogged to death is probably an exageration. the advertised date of manufacture is 2022, so expect 3 years of use, 1 year amazon warranty

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