Was I ripped off? "New" drive appears used

[Johnny]

I am not an expert but reading my preclear report this brand new drive appears to be used to me, can anyone confirm? See attached for entire preclear report.

 

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Short captive       Completed without error       00%     21497         -
# 2  Short offline       Completed without error       00%     20357         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%      6623

preclear_start__YFG9N4AA_2016-07-31.txt

[garycase]

I don't see anything to be concerned about on the report.

 

Stick the disk in your array; go to the Dashboard; and click on the SMART icon and choose "Attributes".

Then scroll down and see what the raw value is for "Power on hours".    That will tell you how many hours it's been used.

 

[garycase]

You can also look on the drive's ID plater and it will show a manufacturering date.  If you've purchased this new from a reputable vendor it shouldn't be more than 2-3 months old.    If you bought it from a source that may have fairly slow inventory throughput, it might be a bit older ... but it certainly shouldn't be more than 6 months old.

 

[binhex]

Looks brand new to me, all raw values are zero or one, spin up count is one so I would say it's new

 

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

 

[JorgeB]

Strange since all SMART attributes are new but SMART self test logs have a test with 21497 hours, maybe a refurb and SMART was not completely reset?

[Johnny]

I've heard you can reset everything to zero except the self-test timer, which is showing 21,000 hours?

 

Anyways I sent that SMART report to the seller with a WTH note in it, they promptly sent me all my money back, said I could keep the drive, and they have no idea what happened.

 

/shrug

[garycase]

Nice that you had an ethical seller who did the right thing.

 

Just for grins, what is the manufacture date shown on the drive?

 

[korith]

 

No idea if this is the case, but 21497 hours is about 2.45 years. A lot of pulls from data centers have been showing up in the last few months on ebay and other online  stores, selling the drives as refurbished or clean pulls. Many with 2-3 years of constant use.

[StevenD]

 

No idea if this is the case, but 21497 hours is about 2.45 years. A lot of pulls from data centers have been showing up in the last few months on ebay and other online  stores, selling the drives as refurbished or clean pulls. Many with 2-3 years of constant use.

 

I recently bought a mess of 2TB Hitachi Ultrastars. They were all data center pulls with 16000-21000 hours on them.  Fortunately, the seller disclosed that these were used drives.

 

I recently purchased a 4TB HGST drive on Amazon. The Seller was CompTraders, but shipped by Amazon. The drive showed up well packaged, but you could read the drive label through the static bag, and it had a manufacture date of Oct 2012!!  I also ran the serial number on HGST's warranty checker and it said something like "see reseller".  I immediately RMA'd the drive.

 

 

[garycase]

I've learned through experience that it's best to limit purchases on Amazon to those that are both "sold" and "fulfilled" by Amazon.    I've never had an issue with those products, but I've had a few problems with those sold by 3rd party sellers, and have read about many more on this & other forums.

 

[bubbaQ]

Something is strange with the warranty lookup for that drive:

 

  https://www.hgst.com/portal/site/en/support/warranty/#step_two

 

And yes, you can reset SMART data with the right hardware (such as a PC3000 card) in your PC.

 

Run another short self test and see what it says for hours .... but I'd be inclined to return it ASAP regardless.

[Johnny]

I've learned through experience that it's best to limit purchases on Amazon to those that are both "sold" and "fulfilled" by Amazon.    I've never had an issue with those products, but I've had a few problems with those sold by 3rd party sellers, and have read about many more on this & other forums.

 

 

Yes with my newly refreshed account I went and spent that and more for a amazon fulfilled disk, I forgot to check the manufacture date on the suspicious drive I'll check it next time I open it up I'm curious too. I just left the suspicious one in the array cuz why not, may as well eek out what life I can get from it.

[jtown]

I've learned through experience that it's best to limit purchases on Amazon to those that are both "sold" and "fulfilled" by Amazon.    I've never had an issue with those products, but I've had a few problems with those sold by 3rd party sellers, and have read about many more on this & other forums.

 

At least Amazon will make things right.  I bought an open box 8tb Seagate external from a third party seller fulfilled by Amazon.  (If it passed diagnostics, I was going to void the warranty anyway so save a few ($50) bucks.)  Turns out someone had shelled it and put in a 320 gig drive then returned it.  Amazon shipped a new replacement drive immediately at the same price as the open box and gave me a prepaid shipping label to return the bad drive and refunded my original purchase amount as soon as the tracking info updated to "received by shipping company".

 

I was very skeptical when they went to the "swap meet" format but they've really nailed the customer service on the marketplace transactions.  While there is higher risk of annoyance, I'm comfortable that my money isn't at risk, just 10-15 minutes of time and a little packing tape.