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smartctl used to check the disk status. But I highly doubt someone will sell their used drives if they holds sensitive information.
Other than that, it's kinda hard to predict the lifespan of a device.
Find out the chassis + motherboard and do some googling. See if there are any major issues. Ask for smartctl output as @sdglhm said if you're buying it with drives you plan to use (I'd recommend getting it empty and buying new drives, but you might get a good deal with some decent functioning drives).
If it has hardware RAID w/ BBU then find the RAID controller's command line utility and get a status report from that - see if the battery is still good, etc.
I wouldn't buy a box without IPMI/KVM if you're planning on colo'ing it, just makes life so much easier.
All hail to the lord IPMI/KVM