At ServerPartDeals, we frequently encounter questions from our customers regarding recertified hard drives.  Having sold thousands of both recertified and brand-new drives, we have gathered valuable insights into these products, what they are, where they come from, how reliable they are, and of course, if it’s worth it to get a recertified drive over a new drive. Obviously, one of the biggest differences between new and recertified drives you have most likely seen is the pricing, with recertified drives sometimes being as much as 40% cheaper than the new equivalent. In this article, we want to shed some light on these drives and help you decide what is best for your data and your budget.

What is a recertified Hard Drive?

Recertified hard drives are units that have undergone a thorough certification process by the original manufacturer. This process involves re-testing and certifying the drive to ensure it meets the brand’s performance standards. While the specifics of the recertification process can vary between manufacturers, the goal remains consistent: to ensure that these drives are fully functional and reliable.

Sources of recertified Drives

Recertified drives come from various sources, including:

• Unsold Units

• Returns

• Overstock

• Demo Units

Despite their origins, all recertified drives undergo a recertification process, which is specific to each manufacturer. Currently, there is no universal standard for this process, leading to variations in how drives are recertified.

Interestingly, If you purchase a new drive and it fails, it is highly likely that the replacement drive you receive will be recertified rather than new. 

Similarities Between New and recertified Drives

1. SMART Data and Power-On Hours

Both new and recertified drives have minimal SMART data and power-on hours. For Recertified drives, this is due to the Manufacturers wiping the SMART data during the recertification process. Meaning any previous data, if there was any, will be gone forever. Before our testing process, ALL Recertified drives will come to us with zero power on hours and zero power cycles. 

2. Labeling

recertified drives are clearly marked to indicate their status:

• Seagate: Uses a different label that prominently denotes the drive as recertified.

• Toshiba and Western Digital: Provides smaller indicators of recertification, with small text on the regular label

3. Model and Performance Standards

They’re the same. The drives are the same exact model as the new drives, and have to meet the same performance standards set by the manufacturer for that specific model. 

Differences Between New and Recertified Drives

Noise Levels

Noise levels can vary significantly between individual drives, regardless of whether they are new or recertified. Generally, the noise generated by a drive is more related to its specific design and model rather than its recertification status. Obviously, if you have a failing drive it’s going to sound like marbles in a trashcan, but for a normal, fully functional drive, some can be really quiet, some can be quite a bit louder. Especially on startup and especially in enterprise drives where drives were designed with the datacenter in mind, where noise levels are not a concern.

Reliability

In our experience, recertified drives are as reliable as, if not more reliable than new drives. The recertification process ensures that each drive meets stringent quality standards. After the manufacturer recertifies the drive however, we still test the drives ourselves, reducing the chance of a lemon being sent out.

Speed

Do recertified drives perform the same as new drives?  To test this, we used four drives in one of our compatily external drive enclosures and ran 5 1gb crystal disk mark speed tests. The test included two Western Digital Ultrastar WUH721818ALE6L4 drives (one recertified and one new) and two Seagate Exos X18 ST16000NM000J drives (one recertified and one new).

• Western Digital Sequential Read/Write: Looking at the results, for sequential speeds, we can see a very slight difference, but well within spec for the drives. For the WD Ultrastars sequential write test, the recertified was less than 4 MB/s slower than the new, but the recertified pulled ahead by less than 4 MB/s when it came to read speeds.

• Seagate Sequential Read/Write: Seagate was an interesting case, for both the sequential read and write tests, the recertified Seagate was between 8-10 MB/s slower than the new drive.

As for the random tests, we did find something pretty interesting. We found both the Seagate and Western Digital Recertified pulled ahead slightly in the random write test, and both fell behind slightly in the random read test.

So, what does this mean? Well, not much. All drives typically have some speed variation for both read and writes. The way we account for this variation is we look at the drives read/write speeds in our testing process and if they fall under a certain speed threshold we consider those drives defective and do not sell them. If you would like to know more about the details of our testing, stay tuned for our video walking you through our testing process and how we determine if a drive passes or fails, and how we set ourselves apart when it comes to testing our drives.

Conclusion

This leaves us with the final question: Should you buy a recertified hard drive? Well, Recertified hard drives offer comparable reliability, speed, and noise levels to new drives. For most users, opting for recertified drives can provide significant cost savings, especially when purchasing multiple units. The value offered by recertified drives is considerable, and scales dramatically as you purchase more units leading to exponential savings as you continue to scale your storage. Our testing process matched with the best packaging in the industry means you know these drives have been inspected, tested, and packed with the utmost care and attention, this means you can get the price you love without taking a risk on the data you can’t afford.

View our recertified drives