What happened to the cheap refurb enterprise hard drives on eBay? The 12TB I bought a year ago for $80 is now $150.
@paul Could it be because of the new school year?
@paul I've bought the last handful I needed from Server Part Deals but it looks like the prices there are way up from last month. The recertified 14TB are up ~$120.
@paul more people are buying them I guess, more demand equals higher price.
@paul I was in the same place a few days ago. I looked at it months ago and thought I could wait a bit. Now it's double the price here in Germany.
@paul the most compelling theory I’ve read was that Linus Tech Tips made them so popular that they started driving up prices.
@paul Might be related to Seagate recently busting an operation selling used drives with wiped SMART data as new. Would have reduced (non-fraudulent) supply and raised prices. Apparently they were also supplying to legit retailers. https://www.heise.de/en/news/Fraud-with-Seagate-hard-disks-Arrests-in-Malaysia-10535171.html
"End-to-end fraud" with hard drives: Seagate finds counterfeit workshop in Asia

Investigating authorities have unearthed a workshop in which used hard disks were converted into new goods. Models from Toshiba and WD were also found.

heise online