Where to buy enterprise hard drives: how to read an Amazon.co.uk listing

Where to buy enterprise hard drives: what this site can tell you

Amazon.co.uk is the only merchant this UK section prices. We do not know what anyone else charges, so nothing here can tell you that Amazon.co.uk is the cheapest or the best place to buy.

So if you searched for the best place to buy enterprise hard drives, we cannot give you a verdict, and a page claiming one without the data would be misleading you. What we can do is narrower: show what is listed on Amazon.co.uk in pounds inc VAT, and explain how to judge one of those listings before you pay.

You should also know how we are paid. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, and the links on this page are of that kind. We do not sell drives ourselves. The seller is Amazon.co.uk or the marketplace seller named on the listing.

The same limit applies to where to buy cheap hard drives. The tables on this page sort by price per TB within Amazon.co.uk, which answers a smaller question: which of these listings has the lowest rate now. At present that is £23.04/TB for a new enterprise 3.5-inch drive and £20.49/TB for one marked Used. Those two rates are not a like-for-like saving, because they can be different models with different warranties.

Reading the listing: seller first

Start with the seller, ahead of the price. Which? says that when goods are faulty it is the retailer that sold them to you who is in breach of the Consumer Rights Act. Your claim therefore goes to the name on the sale, and that may be a marketplace seller and not Amazon or the drive's maker.

In our tables, the seller appears under the condition where Amazon.co.uk names one. A row without a name tells you nothing either way, so open the listing and find out who is selling and who is dispatching before you add it to your basket.

Condition, and where to buy refurbished enterprise hard drives

On this site the only answer we can give is the Used rows on Amazon.co.uk, currently 49 listings; we hold no data on specialist refurbishers. Our Condition column has two values, New and Used. A listing's own wording may be more specific, and when it is, the listing takes priority over our label. For a refurbished drive, look for who did the refurbishing and what that work is said to include. A Used row on its own answers neither.

Check the interface while you are there. Seagate says SAS drives cannot be plugged into SATA controllers, so a low price on a SAS row is no saving for a machine with SATA ports only. An n/s in our table means we could not read that value from the listing, and it is worth settling before you order.

For the refurbished market on its own terms, refurbished enterprise hard drives sits alongside the cut below.

Warranty: what the maker says against what the listing says

Seagate's own terms show how far condition can move the warranty. It lists the Exos 7E10 with a 5-year limited warranty, says its recertified drives are backed by a six-month warranty, and says that warranties for products that include prime drives do not apply to recertified products. As a separate example of a new range, Toshiba states a 5-year warranty for its Enterprise Capacity MG series.

Those are statements about product ranges and a recertification programme. Neither tells you what a given listing carries, and we have not found a document from either maker that says how its warranty applies to a particular marketplace offer. So treat a warranty length on a listing as a claim by the seller until you have confirmed who provides it. Ask, and keep the reply with your order record.

A warranty is a promise from whoever gives it. Your statutory rights are separate, and they are set against the seller whatever a warranty says.

Enterprise hard drives on Amazon.co.uk: five new, five used

These two short tables are examples to practise on, not the market. Each shows up to five of the lowest rows per TB, from 88 new and 49 used 3.5-inch enterprise listings in stock. The full new class is on the enterprise hard drives page, and price per TB ranks by that measure alone.

Your UK statutory rights if the drive is faulty or unwanted

These are the rights of a consumer buying from a trader: Part 1 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 applies to an agreement between a trader and a consumer. Which? sets them out, and section 22 of the Act fixes the first deadline in law. The order matters, because your options narrow with time.

• Within 30 days, faulty: you have the right to a quick refund. Which? says the right to a quick refund is limited to 30 days from the date you took ownership of the product. The Act counts 30 days from the first day after ownership or possession, delivery and any required installation have all happened.
• After 30 days, faulty: you have to give the retailer one opportunity to repair or replace the goods.
• Within six months: a fault that appears is presumed to have been there from the time you received the drive.
• Changing your mind on an online order: Which? says you can cancel up to 14 days after you receive the goods, and then have a further 14 days to send them back.
• Return postage: on unwanted goods it is yours to pay unless the seller agrees otherwise. A faulty item should not cost you to return.
• Paying by card: Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act may help on a credit card purchase within the value band Which? gives, and chargeback may apply otherwise. Look up that band on the Which? page, since the conditions decide whether it covers you.

Know the limits of that summary. The 14-day line comes from Which?'s account, not from the regulations themselves. A company buying for itself is not the consumer these rules describe, and we hold no source on purchases made by a business. We have also not found a source specific to second-hand drives or private sellers. This is not legal advice.

We have not read Amazon.co.uk's returns and A-to-z terms, so we state none of them. Read them on Amazon.co.uk before you order, particularly for a marketplace seller.

Before you order: a short checklist

• The seller's name, and who you would claim against.
• The condition wording on the listing, not only our label.
• The warranty: its length, who provides it, and that in writing where you can.
• The exact part number and interface against your machine's documentation.
• The price on Amazon.co.uk at the moment you buy, which is the one that applies, whatever an earlier look showed.
• The delivery date and the date you take ownership: Which? counts the 30-day quick-refund limit from ownership, and the Act's count also depends on delivery.