Brand New Yet Used Hard Disk

We bought a brand new branded computer. It came from a reputed brand vendor (or also called a system integrator). We would expect it to come with brand new components. One of them was a branded hard disk. The hard disk died. That’s nothing too unusual. Hard disks are one of the most likely components to fail because it is a mechanical part. However, we were in for a surprise when we removed the failed hard disk to do a replacement.

Our branded hard disk, in a branded rackmount server, bought from a brand name company, was in fact a Certified Repaired HDD. In other words, it was a used, or refurbished hard disk! Wow!

Now we see that it is no wonder that the hard disk failed. Well, of course, even a refurbished hard disk would have been subject to properly quality checks and in should work pretty well too. I guess we just wanted to blame something for the problem. Furthermore, we’re just so surprised about getting a refurbished hard disk when we bought a brand new computer. I don’t think anyone would be very pleased about this at all.

You can see from the photo. This is a Seagate hard disk from an IBM eServer xSeries. It’s “date of manufacture” is a pretty long time ago.