Recertified Hard Drives: What the Label Means, NAS Use, and Used Drives on Amazon.co.uk

Recertified hard drive meaning

Recertified, as used here, is a maker's programme word. Seagate uses it for products that are used, reconditioned or repurposed and that it has put through a data overwrite where applicable, a check against its factory performance standards and fresh certification labelling. How Western Digital's programme differs, and how to spot a programme part number, is set out on our manufacturer recertified hard drives page; this page is about what the label means once you are using the drive.

What a recertified drive does not inherit

The most important line on Seagate's page is about what does not carry over. Product documentation including specifications and warranties for Seagate products that include prime drives do not apply to recertified products. A recertified drive with an Exos part number is therefore not covered by the new Exos data sheet, and it has a sheet of its own.

Seagate's Factory Recertified data sheet states:

• A limited warranty of 6 months for every listed capacity.
• 2,400 power-on hours per year, on a row labelled 24x7.
• Nonrecoverable read errors of 1 sector per 10E14 bits read.
• An operating temperature of 10 °C to 60 °C, drive reported.
• SATA 6 Gb/s across 4 TB to 32 TB, with CMR stated Yes for every capacity.
• Secondary NAS Storage among its best-fit applications.

Set the warranty beside a new drive and the gap is plain: Seagate's new Exos X24 sheet speaks of a 5-year limited warranty and a 2.5M-hour MTBF rating, against six months on the recertified sheet. The two sheets describe different products, even when the capacity and the family name match.

Recertified hard drives for NAS

Seagate's own best-fit list on the recertified sheet includes Secondary NAS Storage, so a NAS is not outside what Seagate has in mind for these drives. The word secondary is Seagate's, and it is worth reading closely alongside the hours figure.

The recertified sheet states 2,400 power-on hours a year, on a row it labels 24x7. A NAS that runs all day, every day, is powered for 8,760 hours a year, so by our arithmetic the sheet's figure is about 27% of continuous running. The two numbers are the facts to weigh. A backup target that wakes for a nightly job is a different duty from a primary NAS that never sleeps.

Every capacity on the sheet is SATA and CMR, which matters for a NAS: you are not choosing between recording technologies within Seagate's recertified range, only between capacities. Check the bay is SATA, and match the capacity your array needs.

This table holds 6 listings for used NAS-class drives right now. Read each title: Renewed and recertified are different labels. The Recording column shows CMR or SMR only where a maker document for that part number supports it. Prices are pounds sterling inc VAT.

Recertified hard drives UK: what Amazon.co.uk listings say

A used listing's title may say Renewed, refurbished, recertified or nothing at all, so the table below is labelled by condition and is not a recertified list. It holds used hard drive offers of every kind, whatever the seller has called them.

The table shows 6 listings in used condition right now. Each row prints the merchant as Amazon.co.uk gives it, so read who is selling before you rely on any warranty claim in a title. The six-month term on Seagate's sheet belongs to Seagate's Factory Recertified drives; we have not found warranty text that covers other sellers' used drives.

The table of listings titled Renewed shows 6 listings right now. Renewed is the seller's and Amazon's word, not one of the maker programmes described above. Our page on refurbished enterprise hard drives goes through the labels one by one.

A used drive described as tested: your rights in the UK

The description on a used listing is not just marketing. Where a trader sells to a consumer, Part 1 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 applies, and the goods must meet the standard a reasonable person would consider satisfactory. In our reading, what a listing says about a drive, such as recertified or tested, is part of what that reasonable person would weigh.

Two six-month periods are easy to confuse. Under the Act, a fault that appears within six months of delivery is taken to have been there on delivery, subject to exceptions. Seagate's six-month recertified warranty is the maker's own promise, with its own terms, and is a separate thing.