Is Buying a PETABYTE on Ebay Stupid?

From Linus Tech Tips.

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With our quest to store all of the footage we’ve ever shot for our videos, we’re constantly in need of more storage. Unfortunately, storage is expensive, but when we found drives on eBay for nearly 50% off – we did what any sane folks would, and spent $10,000+ on them. Will we regret it?

Discuss on the forum: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1592998-is-buying-a-petabyte-on-ebay-stupid/

Seagate’s full reply to our question about where recertified drives come from: “The drives come from a variety of sources and may become available to the refurbishment process for a range of reasons from commercial to technical. Drives are repaired and/or upgraded as appropriate, then re-tested to ensure they meet or exceed quality and performance requirements as per the relevant data sheet and will perform well for the term of the warranty.”

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Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

CHAPTERS
—————————————————
0:00 I bought a Petabyte on eBay for 50% off
1:38 What’s the catch?
2:32 Unboxing the Petabyte
3:23 Where did we buy them?
4:27 Testing the power on hours
4:40 The server we’re installing them in
5:30 Smaller setups for homelab or small business
6:40 Building the server
9:40 Does it boot?
10:18 The software
11:11 Do all the drives work?
11:53 Making a ZFS pool
13:46 Speed testing
14:26 Where do these drives come from?
15:00 Conclusion