So far it seems buying these as used/refurbished is fine. The one I bought had 99-100% life left, per CrystalDisk, even though it had > 52,000 hours running time. The drives may need a firmware update to function correctly, so make sure to get Intel SSD Toolbox and/or Dell-specific firmware drivers if necessary. Atto Disk Benchmark put transfer rates > 500MB/s. Installed in a Lenovo ThinkStation P920.