With a 1 year warranty (as seen on Newegg's $600 drives), I might just chance it for the refurbs.

28TB for $350, with a 6 month warranty, is wildly good. https://www.ebay.com/itm/236112931239

There's so much insanely awesome tech in these drives. "12nm integrated controller" (meh ok). nanophotonic laser (fancy led?). photonic funnel. superlattice platinum-alloy media. plasmonic writer. quantum antenna. https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/hdds/new-hamr-las...

> In HAMR HDDs, the nanophotonic laser diode heats tiny portions of drive media to temperatures of 400°C ~ 450°C to reduce its magnetic coercivity before the plasmonic writer writes data to this area.

I get that it's a very very small area. I am curious though how power consumption compares!

It's crazy how far ahead Seagate has gotten. WD and Toshiba haven't been making anywhere near the progress, it feels like. Exos drives are crazy high performance and stunningly affordable.

Buy the 28TB models from Server Part Deals. Don't use eBay it's awful if you need to utilize the sellers warranty past 90 days.

Toshiba at least is at 24TB with their MAMR drives.

Just clarifying, you mean a 1 year on the refurbs? These seem to have a 5 year warranty

I'm very used to 5 year warranty on Seagate enterprise drives, yeah!

I just saw a 1 year on this Newegg item though. Maybe missed something, maybe a weird listing. https://www.newegg.com/seagate-exos-m-st30000nm004k-30tb-har...

Weird. Newegg only shows the 1 year. Maybe they just got it wrong? Or the 1 year is Newegg only and after that you have to go back to Seagate which might be harder as an individual

Do these drives have any unusual performance characteristics, like shingled magnetic recording (SMR) has?

No. I have five of the 28TB drives and they're fine.

No, not really. Definitely not on the level SMR drives do

I wonder about heat buildup during sustained writes.

If it's filled with helium, it might help a bit, as helium conducts heat better than air.