So I've always purchased used Enterprise graded hard drives for my data storage needs, but I recently bought some a pair of HGST ALA640 6GB Helium Filled hard drives and these are by far the most heavily used hard drives I've ever received.
They have 80.000 hours each. 60~ power cycles. Manufactured May 2014, so over a decade old now. Usually the Enterprise drives I get off eBay have 40~k hours and are 4-6 years old. I usually buy the cheapest drive I can find from a major seller (in this case Enterasource) but it seems like used HDD prices are rising and apparently they are selling older drives that I wouldn't think would normally be resold. All because of "increased demand from AI" because of course its AI ruining everything.
Would you guys trust these drives for ANYTHING? I was going to use them as backup storage (I manually copy all my files to my backup drives using a dock, and then they are stored powered down until needed or its time to update the backup).
To add to all that these are 1st generation helium filled hard drives, are there any actual reliable data points on how long a helium drive will last before its loses too much of its helium to function or the seals fail?
I'm running a full format on each of them right now to see if any hidden issues are found, so sketchy.