Seagate
Seagate 9ZM175-003-cr ES.3 2TB SATA 6.0GB/S HDD
★★★★★
2TB of enterprise-grade SATA storage with 128MB cache and 6 Gb/s interface throughput engineered to sustain sequential workloads that consumer drives cannot.
$64.00*
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*Price sourced from Amazon.com. Last updated:Jul 14, 2026.Price and availability are subject to change.
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Overview
Key Features
This Certified Refurbished product is tested and certified to look and work like new. The refurbishing process includes functionality testing, basic cleaning, inspection, and repackaging. The product ships with all relevant accessories, a minimum 90-day warranty, and may arrive in a generic box. Only select sellers who maintain a high performance bar may offer Certified Refurbished products on Amazon.com
Please ensure that your original part number matches this exactly, or check with the manufactuer for compatiblity. Customers are responsible for compatiblity.
This part is guaranteed to be fully functional, original and authentic.
9ZM175-003
Specifications
Capacity
2TB
Interface
SATA 6.0 Gb/s
Cache
128MB
Form Factor
3.5 inch
Rotational Speed
7200 RPM
Model Number
9ZM175-003 (ST2000NM0033)
Condition
Certified Refurbished
Warranty
Minimum 90 Days
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View on Amazon →Pros & Cons
👍 Pros
- Enterprise ES.3 lineage means this drive was engineered for 24/7 continuous operation and RAID error recovery behavior that consumer desktop drives do not reliably provide
- 128MB cache buffer enables efficient burst write absorption, reducing the latency spikes that smaller-cache drives exhibit during mixed read/write workloads.
- SATA 6 Gb/s interface provides backward compatibility with SATA 3 Gb/s controllers while ensuring no interface-level bandwidth restriction on modern systems.
- 128MB cache buffer smooths large sequential write operations, reducing latency spikes during sustained backup and media transfer workloads
- 3.5-inch form factor fits standard desktop, server, and NAS bays without any adapters or mounting modifications
- 3.5-inch form factor and standard SATA connectors make this drive a drop-in replacement in any compatible desktop tower, server chassis, or NAS bay without adapter requirements.
- Enterprise-class TLER support makes the ES.3 suitable for RAID arrays where consumer drives risk triggering rebuild failures due to prolonged error recovery cycles.
- SATA 6.0Gb/s interface ensures forward compatibility with current and legacy SATA III controllers across server and NAS platforms
- 2TB capacity at refurbished pricing delivers strong cost-per-terabyte economics for archival, cold storage, and backup secondary storage tiers
- 2TB capacity at the enterprise tier provides meaningful storage density for sequential workloads like database dumps, surveillance footage archives, and backup repositories.
👎 Cons
- Spinning-platter HDD random IOPS are orders of magnitude below any SSD alternative — this drive is unsuitable for operating systems, applications, or latency-sensitive database workloads
- As a certified refurbished unit, the drive ships with only a 90-day minimum warranty rather than the multi-year coverage available on new enterprise drives, increasing long-term replacement risk.
- Rotational latency is an inherent limitation — at 7200 RPM, random IOPS performance is a fraction of what an SSD delivers, making this drive unsuitable as a primary OS or application drive.
- Refurbished status means prior drive hours, workload history, and S.M.A.R.T. data are not disclosed — deploying without running a full health assessment first is a genuine data risk
- 90-day minimum warranty is a fraction of the 3–5 year coverage standard on new enterprise drives from Seagate and competing manufacturers
- Power consumption is higher than a 2.5-inch or SSD alternative, drawing approximately 7–8W during sustained reads — relevant in NAS builds where multiple drives compound the thermal and power load.
- The drive ships in generic packaging without original accessories, and vibration sensor calibration data specific to a particular chassis may not be present for multi-drive vibration-compensation systems.
- 7200 RPM operation generates heat and vibration that requires adequate chassis airflow and vibration dampening in densely populated NAS enclosures
- Actual sustained sequential throughput is mechanically limited to approximately 150–200 MB/s regardless of the 6.0Gb/s interface rating, which will not saturate a modern SATA III controller
- No published workload rate (WLR) documentation is available for this refurbished SKU, so data center buyers cannot confirm it meets the ES.3's original 550TB/year workload spec.
Frequently Asked Questions
What distinguishes the Seagate ES.3 from a standard desktop Barracuda drive?
The ES.3 is rated for 24/7 continuous operation and a higher annual workload than consumer-grade desktop drives. Seagate's enterprise NAS and server drives carry elevated vibration tolerance specifications for dense multi-drive enclosures and stricter firmware validation for RAID error recovery timing — consumer drives can stall on read errors in ways that cause RAID controllers to drop them from an array. The ES.3 was engineered to avoid that behavior in production environments.
Is the Seagate ES.3 designed for NAS enclosures, or is it a general-purpose enterprise drive?
The ES.3 is classified as an enterprise desktop/server drive, tuned for 24/7 operation and multi-drive RAID configurations. It supports TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery), which prevents the drive from stalling a RAID rebuild — a critical distinction from consumer Barracuda drives.
What rotational speed and cache size does this drive use, and how do those specs affect throughput?
The ES.3 runs at 7200 RPM with a 128MB cache buffer. The large cache allows the drive to absorb burst writes efficiently, and the 7200 RPM spindle speed supports sustained sequential read/write rates appropriate for data-intensive server workloads.
Is this drive suitable for use in a NAS RAID array?
Yes, for secondary storage and archival RAID tiers. The ES.3's enterprise firmware handles RAID error recovery correctly, and the 3.5-inch form factor fits standard NAS bays. However, for a primary NAS running 24/7 with critical data, the refurbished status and unknown prior drive hours make it more appropriate as a second-tier or cold storage drive rather than a primary array spindle. A current-production NAS-rated drive like Seagate IronWolf provides known drive hours, a longer warranty, and NAS-optimized vibration compensation firmware.
What does the 128MB cache do for real-world transfer performance?
The 128MB buffer absorbs burst write operations before committing them to the platters — when copying a large batch of files or writing a full backup set, the cache smooths out the bursty write pattern into sustained sequential writes that the heads can handle efficiently. For large sequential workloads like video media transfers and database backups, the larger cache reduces the write latency spikes that would otherwise appear when the buffer on a smaller-cache drive overflows.
Does the SATA 6 Gb/s interface actually saturate at 6 Gb/s, or is mechanical speed the real bottleneck?
The mechanical platter speed is the real ceiling — a 7200 RPM SATA HDD typically sustains 150–200 MB/s sequentially, well below the 600 MB/s theoretical maximum of SATA 6 Gb/s. The 6 Gb/s interface eliminates interface bottleneck and provides backward compatibility with SATA 3 Gb/s systems.
Will this 3.5-inch drive fit in a standard desktop tower or NAS bay?
Yes. The ES.3 uses the standard 3.5-inch form factor and connects via standard SATA data and power connectors, making it mechanically compatible with desktop towers, server chassis, and 3.5-inch NAS bays.
What does the certified refurbishment process involve, and how long is the warranty?
Certified refurbishment includes functional testing, basic cleaning, inspection, and repackaging by select Amazon-verified sellers. The drive ships with a minimum 90-day warranty. Critically, this process does not necessarily reset S.M.A.R.T. counters or restore drive firmware to factory defaults — actual power-on hours and reallocated sector counts from prior use may still be readable. Running a full S.M.A.R.T. diagnostic with a tool like CrystalDiskInfo immediately after delivery is strongly advised before trusting the drive with production data.
Does my system need SATA III to get full performance from this drive?
SATA III (6.0Gb/s) is required to achieve the interface's theoretical throughput ceiling, but the practical sustained sequential read/write speed of this mechanical drive is governed by platter density and rotational mechanics — not the interface. Real-world sustained sequential throughput on 7200 RPM SATA drives in this generation typically falls in the 150–200 MB/s range regardless of SATA II or III connection. The SATA III interface primarily benefits SSDs, not spinning HDDs, which rarely saturate even the older SATA II (3.0Gb/s) bandwidth.
As a certified refurbished unit, what warranty and testing does this drive include?
The drive ships with a minimum 90-day warranty and has been through Seagate's certified refurbishment process, including functionality testing, inspection, and repackaging. It is verified to be fully functional and authentic, though cosmetic wear and generic packaging are expected.
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