SSD on eBay sold "like new", but with many hours

[soundscribe]

As an experiment, I bought one of these for use as a SLOG. It was cheap:

Intel 320 Series 40 GB Internal 2 5" SSDSA2CT040G310 SSD Solid State Drive 735858219754 | eBay

From the description, the seller says "It like new we just pull out and up grade bigger drive, any questions ask."

Seems to good to be true and probably was. Once in hand, I retrieved the smart data and find the disk has been powered on for about 2 years, 24x7. Oddly, the media wear looks like new and the total writes are low (about 120GB total). It's as though the disk was installed in a machine and never used much.

Would you all consider a powered-on for two years 24x7 a "new" disk? Am I interpreting the smart data correctly?

ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0020 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 17959
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 62
170 Reserve_Block_Count 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0
171 Program_Fail_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
172 Erase_Fail_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
183 SATA_Downshift_Count 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 158
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0032 100 100 090 Old_age Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
192 Unsafe_Shutdown_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 59
199 CRC_Error_Count 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
225 Host_Writes_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3604
226 Workld_Media_Wear_Indic 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
227 Workld_Host_Reads_Perc 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 34359738368
228 Workload_Minutes 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0033 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0
233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
241 Host_Writes_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3604
242 Host_Reads_32MiB 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2846

 

[soundscribe]

Thanks Zankza - so I should be happy with my $30 purchase?

 

[RTM]

Certainly it is in a moral grey area.
But as long as it is only 30$ and it does not appear that the SMART data have been tampered with,I would personally not bother.

By the way, you should remember to update the firmware, the 320s had a particularly nasty firmware bug that would reduce capacity to 8MB.

 

[soundscribe]

Thanks RTM -- looks like my drive has the latest firmware for the 320 -- Firmware Version: 4PC10362

 

[bds1904]

It says "like-new" not "new pull" or "new open box".

IMHO that means used, but functions like new and has a life expectancy of new.

 

[T_Minus]

You got exactly what they listed.

It's barely used, just been "on" a lot.

Win Win as others have said, it's proven now not to randomly die from the start

40gb Intel 320s 15-20$ is the "Great Deal" price for $40-60 you can get a NIB Intel 710.

I run 10+ of the intel 320 in various worker mini-towers, and a handful of 710s in other workers.... ork great for $$

 

[Aestr]

I agree with everyone here that the drive is probably fine and it's not worth stressing over one with such low writes. I would however argue that the seller was incorrect in listing the condition as "New other" as you did now receive a drive matching the condition listed which was "A new, unused item with absolutely no signs of wear.". Looking at the item description it seems English may not be their first language so likely a misunderstanding and again not worth losing any sleep over.

 

[tigweld0101]

To me that might be "like new" I'd say the drive is going to be fine for that price.