Yesterday I found a used 200GB (also Hitachi) PATA drive in a thrift store, for 5€ -40% sales = 3€. Not large enough for backups but might be a good idea as playground while experimenting with btrfs, LVM and such. So got it and testing it currently. So far so good. Had to re-create the GPT however, seems like there wasn't any partition table initially but the reformatting went fine. Here's the results of f3write & f3read:
Data OK: 182.31 GB (382329456 sectors)
Data LOST: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Corrupted: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Slightly changed: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Overwritten: 0.00 Byte (0 sectors)
Average reading speed: 58.11 MB/s
Contemplating buying another 2TB SATA from same source or a used one from local classifieds. In both cases around 60€ or so.Tested a "2TB USB stick" from China. Obviously it was a fake but I got most of my money back. Just a confirmation of what I thought already, these things don't exist, or at least not at the prices they're selling for.
On a side note I also received my PCI Express USB3.0 interface card and installed it. It needs a MOLEX power cable and I have only one in that box (kid2) so now I need 3 of those (2 PATA drives + the USB3 card). So I ordered a 3-way splitter and in the meantime I can test these devices one-by-one. The USB3 card seems to work (at least with a mouse) but I'd need to check with a real USB 3.0 HDD to be sure.
