I will let you know when they arrive. Like I say the reviews with pictures (4.6 stars out of 5) are all good. There is a WD factory in China turning these things out. I will be testing each one within an inch of its life.

Will be interested to find out

I really hope they are packaged better than how Amazon do it, especially if they are coming all the way from China.

Edited by PCJM40 (Mon 03-Mar-25 22:09:45)

The reviews indicate the drives are in anti-static bag then in a foam "cage" and finally in a box. I have checked a couple of the serial numbers with WD but they are termed OEM drives so 5 year guarantee is with seller.

Good luck, I could not be bothered, I got brand-new Toshiba drives for my NAS, they may have cost a fair bit, but at least they are reliable

Who or what is Grok?

Grok is X/Twitter AI chat bot. One drive is due today.

You use a Musk product and expect to get sense from it? All this AI stuff is a load of poop and if it is owned by Musk then it is more full of poop.

In reply to a post by Banger:

One drive is due today.

First thing I would do is check that 'Western Digital' is spelt correct 🤣

Well first one has arrived and looking at the data its a 2021 model but unused as power on and hours are zero or were when I hooked it up. So it is new old stock which accounts for the cheap price. Currently running a surface scan which will take about 8 hours on 3TB drive. Then tomorrow will copy and verify data with Teracopy hopefully all good no verify errors on large files.

Zero powered on hours doesn’t necessarily mean it’s new. The SMART data is usually reset on refurbished drives - and I guess it could be done even if the drive wasn’t refurbished. Similarly, a surface scan won’t tell you that the drive is reliable. Only time - or the manufacturer and retailer’s reputation - can reassure you about this.

My view is that hard drives are so cheap, and you buy them so infrequently, that there is no point in saving a few pennies by buying from an unknown source. WD will sell you drives directly for a very reasonable price.

I wouldn't call £30 compared to £120 pennies.