It's occurred to me that now, with such vendors as Amazon and NewEgg
listing items that are actually sold by other vendors, it's impossible
to be sure to what items a review is referring: is the review of a
brand-new item, a used item, an open-box item, or a used but
refurbished/renewed item? Certainly I have seen complaints that the
reviewer thought s/he was buying a new drive, but the manufacture date
on the label had been erased, or the warranty had expired long before
the purchase, or the SMART data showed that it had clocked up thousands
of power-on hours.

Perce