I hear this a lot online - buy used enterprise stuff online, it'll be cheaper and lasts long (at least you get your money's worth). But when you start to explore the online market for these used enterprise hardware, you find that nobody really sells it for cheap any more, at a price that makes sense to buy it. For example, if a new enterprise class SSD is $250, you may find a used one for $125. But then, brand new consumer SSDs of the same capacity are also available for $125 with warranty. At that point, it doesn't make any sense to buy used hardware, enterprise or otherwise, with no real guarantees of how usable it is. I feel the used hardware markets has also been cornered and monopolised by a few sellers, and you really have to hunt hard for a true bargain. (Maybe on Craigslist?).

I did get a used fake M.2 drive once. Likely the seller had bought a fake drive, used it for a while, then dissatisfied upgraded to something else. It possible the seller didn't know it was fake, but I doubt it.

> I usually buy second hand enterprise SSDs off eBay.

How do you find them, please? Do you just query for "enterprise ssd"? I've just run this search and indeed it returns lots of models from different brands. Thank you.

Could you share which models do you aim for?