manufacturer recertified afaik is two categories. one can basically be returned droves that were never used because some company bought them in bulk and never used it. or returns of drives that are broken new in box, and then fixed, then usually new white labeled. recertified usually consists of drives that were overall, rarely/never used outside of testing for functionality.

refurbished usually is lower standard and usually used drives backed with some warranty.

if its seller refurbished or recert, thats basically useless info imo. cant trust that over the oem.

Server parts deals has a pretty good reputation in the data hoarder community. I’ve got 3 of their drives and at work we have 6. Knock on wood, but we’ve had no problems with these drives over the past couple of years. One was DOA but they replaced it quickly. And better DOA than after it’s in the array for a month.

Also these are enterprise drives so outside of being DOA I have pretty high faith in their reliability.