Used Server Hard Drives: Buying Pulled Disks and Checking Them on Arrival

Second hand server hard drives: what pulled means

We use pulled for a drive taken out of a server or storage system and resold. A listing may not tell you how hard it worked or who owned it, and our table cannot tell you either. The used rows here also take in drives described as renewed, recertified or refurbished. We class a row as new if Amazon reports it new, its title has no refurbished-type wording and its part number is not on Seagate's recertified list. That does not prove a warranty. So a used row is not proof that a drive was pulled, and it is not proof that anyone tested it.

Warranty is the first thing to ask about. No source behind this page gives a warranty term for pulled drives, so we state none, and you should not assume any maker's cover came along with the drive. Seagate's recertified list names 15 programme part numbers with a 6-month limited warranty, so check a Seagate drive's part number against it; the list never says Exos or states the interface. Ask the seller who would handle a claim. Programme terms such as recertification are the subject of refurbished enterprise hard drives.

Used server hard drives for sale on Amazon.co.uk

The main table holds 58 used enterprise hard drives of any form factor and interface, lowest price per TB first, inc VAT. At the latest refresh the lowest per TB is £20.49/TB. Where Amazon.co.uk names a seller the row shows it, which is your first clue to the trader question further down.

If total outlay matters more than cost per terabyte, the next table re-sorts the same drives by price and shows the first 8. The lowest price in it is £69.82. A small drive can top this list and still cost more per TB than a larger one, so keep an eye on the capacity column.

Other used drives our line filter does not place go in a third table, matched on the words Constellation, Enterprise or SAS in the title. It holds 6 rows. A few rows in any of these tables lack an interface or a capacity: those cells show as not stated, and a drive with no capacity has no per-TB figure.

What to check when a used server hard disk arrives

Run these checks before you trust the drive with data, and early enough to act on the result. The commands come from the smartctl and sg3_utils manual pages on Debian's mirror. We have not found a document that sets a pass mark for a used drive, so we give none.

• Compare the drive with the listing: part number, capacity and interface on the label against what you ordered.
• Run smartctl -a. It prints all SMART information about the disk. Save the output with the date, because it is your record of how the drive arrived.
• Run smartctl -H. The manual says a failing health status means the device has already failed, or is predicting its own failure within 24 hours, so get your data off it and contact the seller.
• On a SAS drive, run sg_reassign --grown. The sg3_utils manual calls monitoring the grown defect list a reasonable metric of a disk's health, says the best lists are empty and calls quick growth "an ominous sign". SAS-specific tests sit with refurbished SAS drives.

The clock matters. A consumer buying from a trader has 30 days to exercise the short-term right to reject, subject to the conditions in section 22 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, so do not leave a new purchase boxed on a shelf.

Data left behind on a used data center drive

A drive that left a data centre may not be blank. The NCSC's guidance on sanitisation (reviewed 5 February 2025) is written for organisations who need to ensure data on storage media cannot be read, so it speaks to whoever decommissioned the drive and not to you. Two lines still matter to a buyer. It says some forms of sanitisation allow the media to be reused, and it says that if media is not sanitised, sensitive data may remain on it.

You cannot tell from a listing which of those happened. Our advice is to treat any files you find as someone else's: do not open them, tell the seller, and clear the drive yourself before putting it to work. We have not found a document setting out a buyer's legal duties here, so we give no view on that.

Buying used server hard drives from a trader or a private seller

Which? is blunt on this: you have fewer rights if you buy from a private seller. The line between the two comes from the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which defines a trader as a person acting for purposes relating to their trade, business, craft or profession. Part 1 of the Act applies to an agreement between a trader and a consumer.

Do not assume every used offer on Amazon.co.uk comes from a trader: we have not established that. Look at who the seller is before you order. Which? adds that some marketplace sites offer extra protection, so their terms are worth checking. We have not yet read Amazon.co.uk's Renewed or marketplace terms at source.

One protection favours the individual buyer. A trader claiming you were not acting for purposes wholly or mainly outside the individual's trade, business, craft or profession has to prove it. A company is not an individual, so it should check its own terms. If all this looks like too much risk, new server hard drives or data center hard drives are the alternative.