Been buying refurbs for years. Writing this on a, I really don't know how old computer I bought as a refurb years ago. I do have dedicated physically seperate back up drives. I write books, embedded code for IOT and do data analysis , 1.2M lines and up. This computer is nearing its end, it has a problem in the com ports. I paid $300 6 years ago and I think it was 3 years old then.