I’ve bought several used/refurbished drives from Amazon. Always HGST. I have not had any issue with them yet and some have been going for 4-5 years.

There are caveats though. The ones I bought have had the smart data wiped… So there is no way to know exactly how many hours they really have on them. Also the label is replaced so there no way to see manufactured year. I have no idea how old or beat up these things really are.

I don’t put anything important on them. Just backups.

I would be more concerned about shipping from Amazon vs the quality. I stopped ordering drives from them after the last 2 I got from them were shipped in a bag with no padding.

I’ve recently bought a drive from Amazon warehouse. I haven’t used much other than for the initialization. Overall all of the used hard drives I’ve bought from Amazon continue to work to this day. Some hard drives I’ve bought from Ebay have had issues. I was able to fix one by shucking, but sadly the data was lost from the previous methods I tried. I have another drive that was dead on arrival. One of my most recent drives died alongside with my laptop. I was able to get my laptop fixed via warranty. I sent my hard drive in to Salvage Data for an evaluation, but the lowest estimated quote was around $2500, I only paid for it to be sent back, I may reopen the case to have it fixed in the future.

Honestly it is up to the cost and benefit. If the discount is steep (say 25%+ off the normal price) and the warranty is intact, it is worth a try. Ultimately you have to do your backup regardless of the origin of your drives.

personally, i would never buy a used drive