Always check your drive serial numbers for warranty!

[eggman9713]

Just a little experience I thought I'd share. I just bought a brand new Toshiba N300 Pro 4TB drive from Amazon (Sold and shipped by Amazon, not a third-party seller). And it showed up with zero hours on the SMART, and was in retail packaging like a new drive should be. I haven't bought a Toshiba drive in many years, and just felt like going with a new manufacturer to add some diversity to my drives. I do this to hedge against bad batches of drives by the same manufacturer. The N300 Pro is advertised with a 5-year warranty on the Amazon listing, the box, and Toshiba's website. I always check the serial numbers of my new and newly-acquired used drives and register for the warranty coverage if the manufacturer allows that. Some don't have a registration process and expect you to just contact them if you have an issue in the warranty period. This is the case with Toshiba. But buried on their websites is a tool to check the serial number. It's only showing a 3 year warranty when it should be 5. Now the N300 normal version is a 3-year warranted drive. But this is an N300 Pro, according to its label and its box. But the actual model number that comes back from the serial number lookup doesn't match what's on the drive or on the box either. Interestingly it also indicates that this drive was sold to an OEM and the warranty is through the OEM. This drive came direct from Amazon so that doesn't seem right either. I have an email into Toshiba customer support to clarify the situation, and I'll let you know what comes of it.

 

TL;DR: Always check your drive serial numbers with the manufacturer to make sure they have the warranty period you expect on them, and register them if the manufacturer allows.

[Recovery9411]

Having the same issue currently. Bought drives back in August 2021 and they are now throwing a number of SMART test errors. Serial number on sticker does not match their serial number shown by Truenas via the gui. These drives are failing prematurely IMO- they have failed before my iron wolf drives of the same size, which have been in vdevs longer than the Toshiba's. 

[eggman9713]

On 7/18/2023 at 2:39 AM, eggman9713 said:

I have an email into Toshiba customer support to clarify the situation, and I'll let you know what comes of it.

Update on this. A little over a week ago I got an email that the support rep agreed that the drive should have a 5 year warranty and they were going to look into it with their supervisor. I haven’t gotten another response since then and will likely try to follow up in the next couple of days.

[Lolight]

9 hours ago, eggman9713 said:

Update on this. A little over a week ago I got an email that the support rep agreed that the drive should have a 5 year warranty and they were going to look into it with their supervisor. I haven’t gotten another response since then and will likely try to follow up in the next couple of days.

Please let us know of their response.

Wonder if it's a repackaged fake.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Lolight

[Yankton]

Side note.  Unless they recently stopped, Amazon 'commingles' items shipped and sold by amazon with stuff shipped by amazon and sold by whomever chooses to participate in the commingling program.  So you may have bought something labeled as shipped and sold by amazon and gotten something else entirely.  https://www.sourcing-monster.com/amazon-commingled-inventory/  Only leaving one link - google it, you'll find plenty.

[Lolight]

18 hours ago, Yankton said:

So you may have bought something labeled as shipped and sold by amazon and gotten something else entirely.

It seems that the vast majority of Amazon customers are still unaware of their product intermixing practices.