Buying some used WD Red Helium (WD80EFZX)?

[saveZFS]

Hello,
I can buy four WD Red WD80EFZX from a friend.
He only wants 50 euros per hard drive. However, the disks are from 2017.
Would you still buy such old helium hard disks if the price is good or not?
I'm worried about the helium in particular!

 

[elvisimprsntr]

See if the drives report the He status

SMART Hard Drive Attributes: SMART 22 is a Gas Gas Gas

We recently filled a Backblaze Storage Pod with 45 HGST Ultrastar® He8 hard drives. For the uninitiated, these are 8TB drives filled with helium. The

www.backblaze.com

I would more concerned about power on hours. If he won't provide the SMART status and extended test status, I'd put my $ towards new drives.

 

[saveZFS]

See if the drives report the He status

Yes, the helium status via Smart is still 100 percent. I already watched this with my friend.
I'm just wondering how safe the value is and whether you can still use 5-year-old helium hard drives for many more years?

 

[rvassar]

Yes, the helium status via Smart is still 100 percent. I already watched this with my friend.
I'm just wondering how safe the value is and whether you can still use 5-year-old helium hard drives for many more years?

I have HGST drives that 10+ years old. They still work fine, but there's a catch. They've been powered off most of that time. Don't confuse age with powered on hours. The SMART powered on hours counter, start/stop count, spin up time, accumulated uncorrectable errors, etc... are the metrics you need to look at. The helium percentage is just an additional metric specific to helium filled drives. It does not substitute for the others.

There are 8,760 hours per year, or 43,800 hours in 5 years. There are plenty of drives that make it to that hour count, but that's generally the point at which I start having trust issues. Once a drives gets to around 45k hours I start considering its retirement, even if that doesn't actually happen for another 10+k hours.

 

[saveZFS]

There are 8,760 hours per year, or 43,800 hours in 5 years. There are plenty of drives that make it to that hour count, but that's generally the point at which I start having trust issues. Once a drives gets to around 45k hours I start considering its retirement, even if that doesn't actually happen for another 10+k hours.

Thank you for your assessment. I thought that with the helium drives, the helium diffusion might be the weakest point. Apparently this is not a real problem even after years!