Seagate (Recertified Exos X 28TB Internal Hard Drive HDD - 3.5 in CMR SATA 6Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 512MB Cache, 2.5M MTBF (ST28000NM000C), Renewed

Rigt: 2017 27" iMac, i7 Intel processor 64gb memory with 2TB Fusion Drive. I have 3 DAS unites attached, one older and two high-end DAS units with built-in hub that I bought within the last three weeks. I also added a USB-C (40gb/s) hub and an external M.2 SSD at the same time as the two new DAS units. Delivered timely, packed with a lot of protection for safe arrival, and passed 72 hour burn in and have 14TB of data on it already. This is a new capacity that consumers can buy, but only as factory re-certified which means that either these drives were used as tests, or placed in data centers and after so many hours, are exchanged with Seagate to be released to consumers. The higher the capacity drive we buy, the more data we can lose if there is a catastrophe and the drive stops working. As with any drive you purchase, new or used, be sure to have your data backed to other drives. Most anyone that buys this capacity already knows all of this, but it is a nice reminder and I am sharing that personally, I would never use a 28tb drive as a source without daily backups. I only bought one because I never seen 28TB capacity before and wanted to make sure I tested one before moving forward with buying more. I can now move forward with confidence. For the 28TB drives, I am only using them as my destination backup drive. The drive is very quiet. Cons: When refurbished or re-certified it would be nice to have a data sheet showing how many hours it was in use. Pros: 90 day warranty, 28TB Capacity (Can't wait for the 30 and 32 to come out for consumers). The following has nothing to do with the 28TB drive, but wanted to share my story about my recent upgrade to my system, which added a lot of anxiety with ordering the drive, but was put at ease. No need to read further as the above details the drive alone. My upgrade journey: I work remote and have a MacBook Pro (newer M Series) that has speed, capacity, and everything else one could dream possible. I also have an older 2017 iMac in which I can't update the OS past Ventura, and was getting slower to use. I have Windows 10 and 11 as a VM and have 12 drives attached via DAS. For the last two years, it has been mostly a file server and have contemplated selling it. It originally had 32gb memory. I used to use it as a workhorse when I first got it. I made the decision to do all that I can before giving up on it and through this update process actually physically unplugged it and set it aside, I was so frustrated. First, upgraded the memory to 64gb and that helped a lot. I then took two old DAS units and upgraded them to two newer ones. One 4 bay and for grins, a 5 bay unit. They daisy chain. At the same time, I bought a USB-C hub with a thunderbolt 5 capacity and bought a thunderbolt 4 enclosure and an M.2 2TB SSD so I can move my VM's from the internal Fusion Drive to the external SSD. When I put everything together, I started having problems. My drives were ejecting one after another. I finally narrowed it down to the 5 bay DAS unit, but wasn't convinced it was the unit itself but kept thinking I should send it back and order a different brand or throw an additional $200 for a 4 bay DAS. I was thinking that maybe it was my Mac not being able to handle this. I finally narrowed it down that it would eject this one particular drive first, and then a second. I ran first-aid on all my drives in that DAS but that still didn't work. Could it be that these drives are failing and somehow the sensitive of the new DAS is bringing that to my attention? So I decided to order the 28TB drive. I know, not necessarily the wisest decision. I could have thrown these drives back in my older DAS and call it a day, but it was nagging at me. If these two drives were actually failing, I need to do something about it. Yes, I did check sleep settings and even ran a command to keep these active all the time Didn't work. So I ordered the 28TB drive, it arrives and within the hour I have it in my DAS. Eventually I copied from the failing drive #1 and afterwards, the older drive self-ejected but the 28TB remained running. The 2nd disk self-ejected so I just kept it off of my system. Thus far, the drives I have that never got ejected and the 28TB has been running fine without being ejected. I am very grateful for making the decision of going with the 28TB drive and that somehow these two 18TB drives self-ejected so that I could deal with them. I just wish I didn't spend three weeks trying to figure all this out! I formatted the two drives and will place them back in the older DAS (where they were originally), connect them to another Mac and copy the backup files from the new 28TB drive to them so that I have more confidence. As I said, I am grateful that the 28TB drive helped me to resolve the issue by allowing me to move the data from those two drives that were failing to it, and getting them out of my new DAS setup. I now actually use the 2017 iMac rig as my main work computer, running two VMs, one remote session, and other apps on the Mac and there is no slowing down this computer anymore! All the updates I did with the exception of adding more memory, is external so I can use it on any Mac in the future if I desire. I always buy refurbished drives from Seagate. It saves money, they do last, and always have backups - even for new drives!

Easily the best bang for the buck storage I've ever bought. I think i paid 250 or so. Still working after 6+ months. No issues. Speeds using plugable dock are ok 150MBps but direct plugged into pc they are well in the 250+ range. The clicking noise in the dock is not great assurance but I couldn't hear it when directly plugged into pc sata.

I needed a hard drive with as much storage space for my media files as much as possible and this did the job as it actually works. A lot of people are hesitant to get anything that's renewed or refurbished here on Amazon, but a lot of my electronics that I've bought lately has been renewed and I haven't had any problems with those products. This is my 3rd hard drive that I've bought that's been renewed and so far no problems with any of them. Easy to install and works right away upon hooking up to my PC. It serves what I needed for a much cheaper price than I would've paid for if the product was brand new. It wasn't damaged and worked out of the packaged. I would definitely recommend if you need a lot of hard drive space to buy these and don't pay double the price that you would've done if you bought a non-renewed version. The only thing that I must caution is that the actual TBs on the drive was 25.6 TB for me and not 28 TB as advertised, but most hard drives don't have the exact number that's advertised it's usually lower. I just wish it was at least around 27 TB, but can't complain with over 25 TB since most of the hard drives on the market are nowhere close to 30 TBs right now. I'm glad I found these guys, as I'll buy more from them in the future. I might even buy one next month because I still need to replace two of my older hard drives that only had 10 TBs on them and are getting close to under 1 TB of space since I've been using them for close to a decade now. I just love having as much space as possible, that way I never have to worry about running out of space, or even feel like I'm close to running out of space.

First one was DOA. Amazon Return process went smoothly but unfortunately the price jumped $40 between submitting the RMA and the refund which was only a couple weeks. New one seems to be working well so far. Just over 25TB formatted. Plenty of space for files, pictures, videos, back ups etc.

I bought this HDD to archive all of my personal and professional files. As a test, I loaded some Office docs, music, pictures, and videos. All of these files played back normally. I then loaded all of my data and put this HDD in a safe. A month later got the HDD out so I could update some data files. The HDD was dead. Not recognizable by Win11, disk management, or any of my disk utilities. This was the first HDD I’ve ever had that failed in the last 45yrs of using & building computers. I have other backups, so I didn’t lose any data. I did not return this HDD back for Warranty repair/replacement, due to a very real concern about the security of my data. I just swallowed the $367 charge for this drive.

This is an enterprise class drive that normally carries an enterprise class price, but this drive arrived exactly as described and passed every test I threw at it. I highly recommend this drive if you’re looking for massive amounts of space while saving some money.

I never knew Seagate made a 28tb internal drive. Let alone an Exos drive. I own multiple new Exos internal drives ranging from 8 to 24tb. All have been excellent performers. I orded one for a video media player, and so far so good. A second one arrives tomorrow. I just wish the warranty was better with these drives. 90 days? Compared to the standard 5 year? I guess I'll roll the dice, as you can't find these drives new. and I could use the extra space.

(Update Nov. 2025: I have now purchased 3 of the recertified Exos 28TB drives, which, be aware, go out of stock periodically; all have reformatted and partitioned easily using Mac's Disk Utility. All are used solely for weekly or monthly backups so are not accessed frequently but I have had no issues using them in this way.) Original review: I am using this 28TB drive to back up 4 SSD's holding data (3 @ 8TB, 1 @ 4TB), so first I erased this drive using Disk Utility to make it readable on the Mac , then I partitioned it accordingly (also via Disk Utility). I haven't had any issues; it's perhaps a bit noisy as it copies data during backup (I'm using SuperDuper for that process) but normal in regard to noise for a spinning drive from my experience. I'm not concerned with speed, only data backup (in a fairly compact form for long-term storage) from my far speedier SSD drives. It takes a few hours to back up 8TB of data the first time (faster on subsequent backups with SuperDuper). For this purpose I haven't had any issues in the first few days of use and may buy another one for even greater peace of mind in the backup department. Pretty good price compared to a "new" drive if you can even find one this size in the current market for consumers. I will report here again if I encounter failures or other issues otherwise assume all is OK.