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Thanks! I just checked an 10TB Ironwolf bought to a German seller through Amazon.fr less than two months ago: Its warranty expires in a few days... :(

JAlexoid 2y ago
From what I see, the majority of HDDs on Amazon are now used devices. Which isn't necessarily bad... HDDs have a much longer lifespan than SSDs. I expect my used HDDs to last at least 5years in my RAID5 setup.
- xnorswap 2y ago
  How is listing used devices as new "not necessarily bad"? It's fraud.
  - quesera 2y ago
    Amazon sells both "new" and "refurbished" HDDs. They are clearly marked in the description, but this is often awkwardly-conveniently after the truncation point for search results listings, so you need to be vigilant. In contrast, the article is about used devices sold as new, and with SMART counters reset. That absolutely smells like fraud -- though to be fair, I can concoct at plausible sequence of errors and omissions that arrives at the same result. I expect that someone with subpoena power will need to take it from here.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- tedivm 2y ago
  It's bad if they're lying about it. I will say I bought two HDDs from Amazon just in November, and they were new. I just validated that as well. I purchased directly from Seagate on Amazon.
  - nucleardog 2y ago
    This is the usual reminder that the seller you select on Amazon is no guarantee about who supplied the product when it's fulfilled by Amazon. Unless the seller has opted out of Amazon's inventory commingling, their products got binned with everyone else claiming to sell the same product and you got one at random. If Seagate sends a box of Seagate Exos 16TB drives in, Amazon puts them in bin 1234. If Joe's Computer Shop sends their new, authentic Seagate Exos 16TB drives in, they get put in bin 1234. If Sam the Scammer sends in a couple of "new Seagate Exos 16TB" drives in that are really just reflashed 80GB drives from the 90s, they get put in bin 1234. You order a Seagate Exos 16TB... you get one from bin 1234. The only way to avoid this is to contact the seller beforehand and see if they've opted out of the commingling. But at that point... very likely easier to just buy elsewhere.
    - victorbjorklund 2y ago
      wow. Good to know. Had no idea (but I understand why they would want to do that).
- quesera 2y ago
  You should not be downvoted. I think people are misunderstanding your comment. But I am confused about another part. Why would you prefer (clearly marked) "refurbished" HDDs for 20% less than new, if you expect them to last 5 years? If a new HDD would last 6+ years, you're better off buying new, right? I guess I can see electing to buy into the lower part of the bathtub curve, but I have a difficult time trusting that "refurb" doesn't reset your timeline on the curve (e.g. by replacing the PCB outside the platter box).
  - sekh60 2y ago
    For my last two Exos drives (22TB each) I decided to try refurbs. I have them in my homelab's ceph cluster. I figured I'd try them due to cost. They were two thirds the cost of a new drive, so I figure I can do a 3 for the price of 2 sort of thing and have more redundancy that way. That said, ceph with replica count 3 (min_size 2), so my data is pretty protected. Important stuff is backed up anyway. So far the older one has been running for about 4 months and the newer about 2 months, no SMART errors yet.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    I don't think "at least 5 years" is supposed to suggest a high failure rate after 5 years. It's more a description of use case. I wouldn't expect a particularly high failure rate until the drives are ready to be retired and replaced with much bigger drives. Also as a reference point, the refurbished drives I've bought have been less than $10/TB, while new internal drives are $15/TB on a good day.
  - kmoser 2y ago
    > I guess I can see electing to buy into the lower part of the bathtub curve This assumes you know and can control where in the curve you're buying into.
  - JAlexoid 2y ago
    They're not 20% less, they're a third of the price of a new one.
- y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
  The majority of everything on Amazon seems used. I stopped buying electronics from them (unless it's something cheap I don't care too much about) and I buy directly from manufacturers or walk into Best Buy and buy it new. Hard drives, memory sticks, GPUs, monitors/TVs, and headphones from Amazon are a hard NO from me. The chances of them being used or outright counterfeit is ridiculously high now. Pretty much everything I purchase from Amazon these days seems to be used or fake. This includes something as simple as Vitamin D supplements, where you can tell the packaging has been tampered with. Sometimes I even get consumable products where the seal is gone or has been torn in half.
  - quesera 2y ago
    I wish I had a better understanding of the bimodal distribution of customer satisfaction with Amazon. I know high volume customers who have 99.5% success with Amazon orders, and others who would say "pretty much everything I buy is used or fake". First assumption is that it boils down to differences in product types. Certainly some types attract more seller fraud. But I wonder if there's also a region or distribution center variability, like the East Cupcake Regional warehouse does a crappy job of inspecting returns. Or the delivery manager in West Cupcake hires crappy drivers. Amazon must do this analysis internally. I'd love to understand it better.
    - harrall 2y ago
      I’ve noticed this too. People complain about counterfeit products but I have never had a problem. I basically avoid name brand fungibles. Find any two hard drives and they look and function the same, which means I’m not buying that on Amazon. But I see people complaining about counterfeit products but they buy batteries and hard drives from Amazon and I would never.
zzyzxd 2y ago
From my experience dealing with them, Seagate's default warranty info is based on drive's date of manufacture. So it is possible that this drive had sat in some Amazon warehouse for 5 years before you got it.. You can register the drive with receipt to get that data corrected on Seagate's side.

JAlexoid 2y ago

From what I see, the majority of HDDs on Amazon are now used devices. Which isn't necessarily bad... HDDs have a much longer lifespan than SSDs. I expect my used HDDs to last at least 5years in my RAID5 setup.

xnorswap 2y ago
How is listing used devices as new "not necessarily bad"? It's fraud.
- quesera 2y ago
  Amazon sells both "new" and "refurbished" HDDs. They are clearly marked in the description, but this is often awkwardly-conveniently after the truncation point for search results listings, so you need to be vigilant. In contrast, the article is about used devices sold as new, and with SMART counters reset. That absolutely smells like fraud -- though to be fair, I can concoct at plausible sequence of errors and omissions that arrives at the same result. I expect that someone with subpoena power will need to take it from here.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
tedivm 2y ago
It's bad if they're lying about it. I will say I bought two HDDs from Amazon just in November, and they were new. I just validated that as well. I purchased directly from Seagate on Amazon.
- nucleardog 2y ago
  This is the usual reminder that the seller you select on Amazon is no guarantee about who supplied the product when it's fulfilled by Amazon. Unless the seller has opted out of Amazon's inventory commingling, their products got binned with everyone else claiming to sell the same product and you got one at random. If Seagate sends a box of Seagate Exos 16TB drives in, Amazon puts them in bin 1234. If Joe's Computer Shop sends their new, authentic Seagate Exos 16TB drives in, they get put in bin 1234. If Sam the Scammer sends in a couple of "new Seagate Exos 16TB" drives in that are really just reflashed 80GB drives from the 90s, they get put in bin 1234. You order a Seagate Exos 16TB... you get one from bin 1234. The only way to avoid this is to contact the seller beforehand and see if they've opted out of the commingling. But at that point... very likely easier to just buy elsewhere.
  - victorbjorklund 2y ago
    wow. Good to know. Had no idea (but I understand why they would want to do that).
quesera 2y ago
You should not be downvoted. I think people are misunderstanding your comment. But I am confused about another part. Why would you prefer (clearly marked) "refurbished" HDDs for 20% less than new, if you expect them to last 5 years? If a new HDD would last 6+ years, you're better off buying new, right? I guess I can see electing to buy into the lower part of the bathtub curve, but I have a difficult time trusting that "refurb" doesn't reset your timeline on the curve (e.g. by replacing the PCB outside the platter box).
- sekh60 2y ago
  For my last two Exos drives (22TB each) I decided to try refurbs. I have them in my homelab's ceph cluster. I figured I'd try them due to cost. They were two thirds the cost of a new drive, so I figure I can do a 3 for the price of 2 sort of thing and have more redundancy that way. That said, ceph with replica count 3 (min_size 2), so my data is pretty protected. Important stuff is backed up anyway. So far the older one has been running for about 4 months and the newer about 2 months, no SMART errors yet.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  I don't think "at least 5 years" is supposed to suggest a high failure rate after 5 years. It's more a description of use case. I wouldn't expect a particularly high failure rate until the drives are ready to be retired and replaced with much bigger drives. Also as a reference point, the refurbished drives I've bought have been less than $10/TB, while new internal drives are $15/TB on a good day.
- kmoser 2y ago
  > I guess I can see electing to buy into the lower part of the bathtub curve This assumes you know and can control where in the curve you're buying into.
- JAlexoid 2y ago
  They're not 20% less, they're a third of the price of a new one.
y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
The majority of everything on Amazon seems used. I stopped buying electronics from them (unless it's something cheap I don't care too much about) and I buy directly from manufacturers or walk into Best Buy and buy it new. Hard drives, memory sticks, GPUs, monitors/TVs, and headphones from Amazon are a hard NO from me. The chances of them being used or outright counterfeit is ridiculously high now. Pretty much everything I purchase from Amazon these days seems to be used or fake. This includes something as simple as Vitamin D supplements, where you can tell the packaging has been tampered with. Sometimes I even get consumable products where the seal is gone or has been torn in half.
- quesera 2y ago
  I wish I had a better understanding of the bimodal distribution of customer satisfaction with Amazon. I know high volume customers who have 99.5% success with Amazon orders, and others who would say "pretty much everything I buy is used or fake". First assumption is that it boils down to differences in product types. Certainly some types attract more seller fraud. But I wonder if there's also a region or distribution center variability, like the East Cupcake Regional warehouse does a crappy job of inspecting returns. Or the delivery manager in West Cupcake hires crappy drivers. Amazon must do this analysis internally. I'd love to understand it better.
  - harrall 2y ago
    I’ve noticed this too. People complain about counterfeit products but I have never had a problem. I basically avoid name brand fungibles. Find any two hard drives and they look and function the same, which means I’m not buying that on Amazon. But I see people complaining about counterfeit products but they buy batteries and hard drives from Amazon and I would never.

zzyzxd 2y ago

From my experience dealing with them, Seagate's default warranty info is based on drive's date of manufacture. So it is possible that this drive had sat in some Amazon warehouse for 5 years before you got it.. You can register the drive with receipt to get that data corrected on Seagate's side.