Manufacturer Recertified Hard Drives: Seagate and WD Compared, OEM Drives and Rights

What is a recertified hard drive from the manufacturer?

Manufacturer recertified, or factory recertified, means the maker has taken a drive back and put it through its own process before selling it again. This page compares Seagate's and Western Digital's programmes in each maker's own words.

Seagate describes its recertified products as used, reconditioned, or repurposed, and lists three steps:

• Overwrite data when applicable, following the Data Overwriting Process for Returned Products.
• Confirm the product meets Seagate factory performance standards.
• Apply factory certification, or recertification as applicable, labelling.

Western Digital says its recertified products may consist of customer return units and may be repaired, and that all of them are tested and determined to meet WD's quality standards before they are sold as recertified. Both makers, then, are describing a drive that has been used or returned and then tested by the people who built it. What separates a manufacturer recertified drive from a seller's refurbishment is who did the testing and whose warranty comes with it.

Factory recertified hard drives: Seagate and WD side by side

The warranty row is the one most buyers come for. Seagate states six months in three places: the programme page says the drives are backed by a six-month warranty, its support page lists each programme number with a 6-month limited warranty, and the recertified data sheet prints 6 months in every capacity column. WD's warranty page states 12 months for purchases on or after 20 August 2019, but WD's own pages add complications, set out below.

How to tell a factory recertified drive by its part number

Seagate's support page lists 15 recertified programme numbers, one for each capacity from 4 TB (ST4000NM000C) to 32 TB (ST32000NM000C) in 2 TB steps, each with a 6-month limited warranty. The digits before the C vary between capacities: the 18 TB number, for example, is ST18000NM002C. What they share is the final C.

Compare the new Exos X18 sheet, which lists its 18 TB standard models as ST18000NM000J and ST18000NM004J. The digits can look alike across the two lists; the last letter is what places a drive on the recertified list or on the new drive's sheet.

WD marks its recertified drive differently. On WD's en-gb store, the recertified HC580 24 TB SAS Base (SE) model carries the part number R0F62802, while WD's page for the new drive lists the same model as 0F62802, with no R. We have confirmed that pattern for this one SAS model only, so treat an R prefix as something to check against WD's own page, not as a rule for every WD drive.

WD's recertified HC580 page: two warranty statements

WD's store page for the recertified 24 TB HC580 does not speak with one voice. Its specifications and highlight tiles print a 1-Year Limited Warranty. Its product description, under Quality and security, says the drive provides additional peace of mind with a 5-year limited warranty. We have not found a line on the page that says which applies to the recertified unit, so we print both and pick neither.

WD's wider warranty pages point towards caution. Its limited warranty for Ultrastar and HGST drives applies to new drives purchased from an authorised dealer by the original purchaser for normal use and not for resale. And where a drive's date code marks it as re-certified, WD says the product may not be subject to the terms of WD's warranty. If the term matters to you, get it in writing from WD or the seller before you rely on any of these figures.

Our refurbished WD Ultrastar page holds the WD detail and our refurbished Seagate Exos page the Seagate programme in full; this page is the comparison between them.

OEM drives: the third kind of used drive you will meet

A drive can carry a maker's label without the maker's warranty. Seagate's guidance on OEM drives says that where a Seagate-brand product was sold directly to an OEM, the OEM holds all warranty rights and responsibilities for the system. Its own example is a drive bought as part of a Dell PC and later sold on as a separate product: the drive label still says Seagate on it, but it is actually Dell's original property, and any warranty must be claimed through Dell.

For service on such a drive, Seagate tells you to contact the system manufacturer or your place of purchase. That makes an OEM pull different from both programmes above: it was neither recertified by the maker nor covered by the maker directly, whatever the label says.

Trade press gave the same advice in 2015, when ServeTheHome wrote that buyers, especially of bare drives, should verify with the vendor's warranty check tool that the drive they purchased does have the appropriate warranty period. That is an article, not a maker document, but the step it recommends costs nothing.

Are factory recertified hard drives good?

We cannot give them a quality rating, and we have not found a maker document that claims one beyond the maker's own testing. What the documents do support is a short list of trade-offs. A factory recertified drive has been tested by its maker, which a seller's refurbishment may not have been. It comes under a maker's warranty terms: six months from Seagate, and 12 months on WD's warranty page, with the HC580 conflict above to settle before relying on WD's. And it does not inherit the new drive's data sheet, because Seagate says those specifications and warranties do not apply.

Whether that suits you depends on the job. Our recertified hard drives page reads Seagate's recertified data sheet line by line, including the hours it states and its best-fit uses, and asks whether a recertified drive belongs in a NAS.

Manufacturer recertified hard drives on Amazon.co.uk

Right now this table holds 5 listings carrying a programme part number. A programme number in a title is the seller's statement until you have matched it against Seagate's list. If a row with a programme part number shows as New, the two do not agree, because the number is on Seagate's recertified list; ask the seller to explain the listing before you buy.

This second table is wider: used Seagate enterprise drives of every kind, with or without a programme number. A row without one is a used drive, not a factory recertified one, and the six-month Seagate term does not attach to it on the strength of the brand. Prices are pounds sterling inc VAT, and the merchant is printed on each row.

WD's programme has no table here. To find one, search titles for an R-prefixed part number such as R0F62802 and check it on WD's own page.

Your rights on a recertified drive bought in the UK

Separate from any maker warranty, the seller has duties too, but only in a consumer sale. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 Part 1 covers an agreement between a trader and a consumer, a consumer being an individual buying wholly or mainly outside their trade, business, craft or profession.

Bought that way, a recertified drive must meet the standard a reasonable person would consider satisfactory. A fault within six months of delivery is presumed to have been present at delivery, subject to exceptions, and you have until the end of 30 days to use the short-term right to reject. GOV.UK tells businesses they must refund an item that is faulty, not as described or does not do what it is supposed to.