I saw a good deal on a 4 year old HGST Enterprise 3TB that has never been powered on before, same price as WD Blue 3TB. Should I get it?

Can the "power on hours" be fooled in various software like HDDLife or CrystalDiskInfo?

Do hard drives "degrade" over time even when not used?

would like to know which can last longer eventually. Understand the MTBF for HGST is way longer, but it has "idled" for 4 years.

HITACHI bro, thas the best one HGST 'HITACHI GLOBAL STORAGE'

Even if the HGST drive's SMART has been cleared to spoof the age, an enterprise HGST will still run years longer for you than the new WD Blues will. Enterprise HGST 4Tb drives are almost all I use here because they are the only ones that can handle all the abuse we put them under on a daily basis.

Just be sure that you have an SAS controller if they are SAS drives.

_________________
Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

If an Enterprise drive is used for archival purposes, i.e. transfer once, kept for 2 years, update backup again - will Enterprise suit this type of workload?