[Noah Kadner] “Who at Seagate would say this? Doesn’t speak too well for their company.”
Or it does speak very well for the company. They are being honest.
Of course not all 5-years-on-the-shelf drives would not work, otherwise they couldn’t give 5 year warranty, but there might be something like 1% does not start.
I’m voting for optical archive. 50GB brd’s will be the cheapest, fastest and easiest way.