Data-recovery firm tests $28, 500GB HDD from Amazon and gets surprising results

For the price, it "performs well and provides good value" but is still a risky buy.

Jun 24, 2025 - 22:50

Data-recovery firm tests $28, 500GB HDD from Amazon and gets surprising results

Fraudulent or misleading storage devices are, unfortunately, still easy to find via online marketplaces. It's also a common story that someone buys a shockingly cheap storage device from an unknown brand and ends up with a product that doesn’t perform as expected—or at all.

With this in mind, data-recovery firm Secure Data Recovery recently bought a 500GB HDD from Amazon (the UnionSine HD2510) for $28 and tested it. The results were better than expected, but there are still reasons to avoid buying something like that.

Testing

Kirill Rymko, director of lab operations at Secure Data Recovery, told Ars Technica that his company decided to buy and test UnionSine’s 500GB external HDD due to its low price-per-GB. As of this writing, the 2.5-inch drive costs $28.28 on Amazon, or about $0.06 per GB.

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