Refurbished hard drive? Good idea or not?

Found some seemingly good deals on HGST helium filled drives.
Claims they're manf. refurbished. Is it worth looking at refurbed drives these days? - I did find some "seller" refurbished drives too, but I doubt i'd touch them even with somebody else's NAS.

 

If they're free, there are no regrets taking them directly to the recycle depot. Without opening the packaging up.

With all the ways malware can be injected into systems these days, refurbished storage devices seem like a risk not worth taking.

 

Personally I would not buy a refurbished drive, either metal platter or SSD.

I'd be fine buying a used SSD since flash memory is more robust than metal platters. I would never buy a used metal platter drive though.

 

Hmm, I never did consider the malware angle, I was only thinking about mechanical reliability.
Sounds like time to put the idea to rest. Thanks.

 

You should look at what they describe as refurbished drive and which drives makers they are. But as to malware that is overblown and you should check if it's a reputable seller not some alley seller. For those malware you should look at Lenovo for that.

 

Unless the seller is an authorized by HGST to sell those products, I'd steer clear. Too often "refurbished" hard drives have just been deep-formatted with no parts replaced. They could potentially have thousands of hours on them.