datahoarder
Who are we?
We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.
We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.
-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread
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Having worked at Amazon processing customer returns, you do not want to buy drives that have been processed through Amazon customer returns. We took them in whatever package the customer sent them in (I've seen gallon size ziploc freezer bags), which are just tossed into a big UPS box with who knows what else, then jittered around on conveyor bars, and then it goes into a thin plastic bag (not anti-static), thrown into (this is not an exaggeration, a lot of employees toss the items in like Kobe, it gets boring after your 900th item this week) big plastic staticky tote bins clunking around underneath who knows what else, jittered and clunked on the conveyors again, and then eventually sent to the warehouse deals desk. All protected by nothing more than a thin plastic bag.
I'd actually trust the refurb more than returned customer purchases.