I’ve found these NetApp SAS Festplatte 6TB 7,2k SAS 12G 3,5" - 111-02374 E-X4064A-R6 ST6000NM0034, that cost only 38€! It’s a brand that I’ve never heard about and I’ve no idea how many hours they’ve worked (I’ve asked and I’m waiting for an answer). What do you think?
Edit: I’ve asked the seller if there is a custom firmware that makes the drive unusable and it answered me saying that they work with any SAS HBA controller. They have worked 1863h and written 130TB (he showed me 4 screenshots of 4 tests of 4 drives)
I have a bunch of ST6000NM0095 (which are similar specs) in my NAS, and despite already being well used when I got them, so far only one needed to be replaced in nearly 5 years of (my) usage.
My only advice with these is: if you notice a maddening noise coming from them when they’re idle, update them to the latest firmware and it’ll go away.
Hi Antsu, thanks for your precious feedback!
NetApp is big in enterprise DAS space; think big server rack with highly redundant components to provide block storage devices to multiple workstations in the office. If I remember correctly, they’re also the ones where their drives are formatted with 520 bytes per sector, and you’d need to reformat them using
sg_format
to 512 bytes per sector before you can use them with some systems.For what I saw there’s a good chance it has a custom firmware that makes them unusable outside the walled garden