Been talking to Grok again

Grok has outlined a procedure for testing 2nd hand 3xWD Red 3TB drives I have picked up on the bay of plenty. Including a disk scanner called Victoria 5.37. Anyone heard of it, it's portable and works well even if it takes 8 hours to scan for bad blocks on 3TB drives.

Grok has no recollection of our conversation on WD Reds. One of which is arriving tomorrow. It told me to drop the SMART stats for its opinion. Pft.

2 WD Reds arrived today. A 2017 and 2014 model. Both have been tested with Crystal Disk and showed no errors. So started writing my files to both of them and the 2017 model bad blocks and reallocated sectors started shooting up. The 2014 so far has been fine. Both of them low power on hours < 15k hours.

Seller has agreed to replace the 2017 and hope its better but if not a refund. Also found a listing for "Brand New" WD Red so have ordered it as it wasn't much more than a second hand one.

Remind me. Why are you buying a 8 year and 10 year old mechanical drives? Penny dirt cheapo storage or you're a masochist? 😅

I know there must be some masochism involved somewhere but when you can pick up a 3TB for 20 quid it seems like a bargain especially with a 30 day money back guarantee. I am hoping the brand new one is actually brand new. Paying £120 for a new one seems like masochism.

I thought Reds were their middle of the road general purpose drives. Are they known to have exceptionally long lives then?

With anything mechanical or indeed electronic it's often less about the spinning hours as it is about the power cycles.

I wasn't unheard of all that long ago, to have a machine which had been rarely (or ever) powered down in 10+ years to suddenly stop working after a relocation move.

Reds are supposed to be designed for 24/7 operation in NAS storage although I am partial to a Seagate Ironwolf myself but too expensive even second hand.

I never turn my PCs off because once an Electronics Lecturer told us that Silicon doesn't like voltage to be applied and reapplied ad infinitum. "Marvellous invention but likes to be left on."

Ah fair enough. I made the huge mistake of putting some 2.5" WD Black drives in one of my first NAS boxes many years ago. They let me down badly. Salutary lesson learnt; don't put the wrong drives in the wrong box / application.

I've now been running 8 IronWolf drives since 2019 in the 'new' (not any more) Synology and they have been generally fine, albeit two have some bad sectors, but otherwise they just plod on.

I'd be too nervous to put an 11 year old drive of whatever extraction into anything I care about the data though.

They are for redundancy. Main backup is external SSD/Cloud which is error free but at the moment it seems like the luck of the draw getting a good mechanical.

That's 2 x WD Reds going back for refund. 2014 and 2013. 2014 had 3 bad sectors appear and was corrupting files after a copy and verify, didn't seem to remap them looks like a firmware bug. The 2013 was DOA.

You are lucky these drives are failing immediately. Replacements may, with any luck last a couple of months.

Do you think you will get a refund then?

I would no sooner buy second-hand hard drives than second-hand medicine.

Edited by TinyMongomery (Thu 27-Feb-25 06:32:53)

I think I’d buy second hand drives before I bought a small batch of drives at the same time all from the same manufacturer…

I learned that lesson a few years ago, bought three drives for my ZFS three drive mirror, two drives failed in the first month in the same week, the third started having problems during the rebuild. Their serial numbers weren’t far apart.

My three drive mirror now always drives from at least two manufacturers (picking three different ones can be challenging with the state of the drive industry).

Of course predictably I’ve not had a single drive failure since that.

And before someone asks, yes a three drive mirror is very wasteful of space. But I have less than 4TB of data, so doing it doesn’t cost me much (and getting 4TB of storage with two drive redundancy without a mirror means even more drives).

I expect you got the drives replaced under warranty.

Do you think the same would hold for second-hand drives (especially if bought from an individual rather than a retailer)?

Ebay is pretty good at stepping in if the seller is not playing ball. I have had refunds in the past where the seller said no returns. The drives are all packed up and ready to go via Mrs Postie.

I honestly doubt that eBay gives as long a warranty on second-hand goods as retailers do on new ones. The law certainly doesn't.

I agree that there is no problem if the devices are u/s on arrivial. But if they start packing up a few months down the line....

Hard disks are so cheap nowadays that I wouldn't take the risk personally.

30 days on Ebay to return. I have ordered two new Reds with 5 year warranty described as brand new by the retailer. Not playing with 2nd hand disks any more not worth the hassle.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I have ordered two new Reds with 5 year warranty described as brand new by the retailer. Not playing with 2nd hand disks any more not worth the hassle.

Buying second hand disks is a fools game so glad you finally decided to go for new ones fella as in the long run its the smart move.

Turns out the Ebay drives are both coming from AliExpress from sellers in China. Ebay is the middleman, so went on AliExpress and ordered a new one for £30 delivered. Hope they aren't fakes but seller has good reviews.

If the price seems to be too good to be true….

In reply to a post by Banger:

Turns out the Ebay drives are both coming from AliExpress from sellers in China. Ebay is the middleman, so went on AliExpress and ordered a new one for £30 delivered. Hope they aren't fakes but seller has good reviews.

To be totally frank fella, I would be very worried by the authenticity of a branded product if bought from China so I simply wouldn't do it. I typically buy from reputable companies in the UK on things that I have a dependency on. When I bought some WD Red Plus disks I think I bought from scan.co.uk although lots of one man bands on the web were offering them for below regular price but how can you trust them.

I will let you know when they arrive. Like I say the reviews with pictures (4.6 stars out of 5) are all good. There is a WD factory in China turning these things out. I will be testing each one within an inch of its life.

Will be interested to find out

I really hope they are packaged better than how Amazon do it, especially if they are coming all the way from China.

Edited by PCJM40 (Mon 03-Mar-25 22:09:45)

The reviews indicate the drives are in anti-static bag then in a foam "cage" and finally in a box. I have checked a couple of the serial numbers with WD but they are termed OEM drives so 5 year guarantee is with seller.

Good luck, I could not be bothered, I got brand-new Toshiba drives for my NAS, they may have cost a fair bit, but at least they are reliable

Who or what is Grok?

Grok is X/Twitter AI chat bot. One drive is due today.

You use a Musk product and expect to get sense from it? All this AI stuff is a load of poop and if it is owned by Musk then it is more full of poop.

In reply to a post by Banger:

One drive is due today.

First thing I would do is check that 'Western Digital' is spelt correct 🤣

Well first one has arrived and looking at the data its a 2021 model but unused as power on and hours are zero or were when I hooked it up. So it is new old stock which accounts for the cheap price. Currently running a surface scan which will take about 8 hours on 3TB drive. Then tomorrow will copy and verify data with Teracopy hopefully all good no verify errors on large files.

Zero powered on hours doesn’t necessarily mean it’s new. The SMART data is usually reset on refurbished drives - and I guess it could be done even if the drive wasn’t refurbished. Similarly, a surface scan won’t tell you that the drive is reliable. Only time - or the manufacturer and retailer’s reputation - can reassure you about this.

My view is that hard drives are so cheap, and you buy them so infrequently, that there is no point in saving a few pennies by buying from an unknown source. WD will sell you drives directly for a very reasonable price.

I wouldn't call £30 compared to £120 pennies.

I would for something I buy maybe every two years at most. It's less than the cost of a meal out with the family.

I guess it all depends upon what value you put on your data.

Edited by TinyMongomery (Tue 04-Mar-25 19:45:08)

Multiple redundant backups my friend. Besides the WD warranty if used you get a refurbished drive as replacement.

I thought you said they were OEM drives so warranty was with the seller, not WD?

Yes they are I was speculating if I had purchased from WD direct. One thing I have noticed while doing a surface scan is the speed compared to my 2016 Red, top read 150MB/s on 2016 on outer tracks. This one 220MB/s on same USB interface. Amazing how the technology has come along. Still got two drives to get hopefully 2024 stock.

Oh yes. Buy from WD (or buy a retail drive from any retailer) and you’ll get the full warranty. Whether it’s worth paying extra for that or you are happy to rely on a firm in China that probably disappeared yesterday is up to the individual.

Well bad news. Its a fake. The model number in the internal data is written as WCD instead of WDC. Label says manufactured Jan 2025 but internal data says 04 2021. Passes the surface scan but going for refund.

Thats a bummer, at least you found out now.

The old truism you get what you pay for typically holds true. Mostly.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The old truism you get what you pay for typically holds true. Mostly.

With so much direct selling via the usual platforms from that particular country their is no control over what they are selling.

Doesn't look good for the 2 x 2024 drives on their way. Giveaway was the WCD model number prefix in data of the drive. Looks like the firmware has been tampered with as WD Dashboard Software doesn't even recognise the drive which it should. Also the serial number is not found on the WD warranty check.

Could be that they’re not even 3TB drives, just reporting that they are. A surface scan may be scanning the same areas multiple times. This sort of chicanery is common with solid state drives fromm dubious sources.

I know I have seen SSDs 4TB for £10 in the reviews one said he opened it up to find multiple SD cards wired together. Anyway going back for full refund. Seller has finally been in touch.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The old truism you get what you pay for typically holds true. Mostly.

With so much direct selling via the usual platforms from that particular country their is no control over what they are selling.

Many are drop shipped from a bonded warehouse in the UK. The supplier sends a container load of pre-packed goods to the UK. They advertise on places like eBay that often make it appear the goods supplier is based in the UK, but actually they’re in China. So they neatly skip lots through lots of loopholes like avoiding VAT, product compliance and safety etc.

If there is a problem they’ll refund because the sales platform, but they’ll never ask for the goods to be sent back, like a real UK retailer would.

Of course there are also those Chinese sellers that do ship from China but the goods usually take a few weeks to arrive. Sometimes longer.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

Could be that they’re not even 3TB drives, just reporting that they are. A surface scan may be scanning the same areas multiple times. This sort of chicanery is common with solid state drives fromm dubious sources.

Disaster erased me source drive instead of the fake one. Fortunately I have a backup. Funny how the erase is only going to take 4 hours when the specs say 8.

I don't know why you don't buy a new drive and then save up for another new drive later on. You can get a 3TB Seagate drive from ebuyer for £99.

https://www.ebuyer.com/1425706-seagate-ironwolf-3tb-...

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Many are drop shipped from a bonded warehouse in the UK.

That seems to be the norm now, people across China buying ready made businesses with an ebay shop front with thousands of items listed and the very same stock photos, graphics and spelling mistakes in the listings. They all seem to source from the same bonded UK warehouses who are also owned by the Chinese. Most of the sellers know nothing about the products and what they are actually selling.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I don't know why you don't buy a new drive and then save up for another new drive later on. You can get a 3TB Seagate drive from ebuyer for £99.

https://www.ebuyer.com/1425706-seagate-ironwolf-3tb-...

WD has some direct for £80 but they are Shingled drives which are prone to slow downs. Will have to investigate the Ironwolfs.

In reply to a post by Banger:

WD has some direct for £80 but they are Shingled drives which are prone to slow downs. Will have to investigate the Ironwolfs.

If you are using them for back up, then SMR will not make any difference, not so great in a raid system as it may slow things down, but for normal use you are not going to notice much difference I doubt.

The Toshibas I have in my NAS are CMR, Cost me £300 for two 8TB n300 drives. £191 each now for the 8TB ones.

I only went for the CMR because i have them in a raid system in my NAS, otherwise I would have gone for SMR

Spotted two Ironwolfs on Ebay @ £60 each and seller assures me they are brand new in original packaging so have sent him an offer and he has accepted. Bound to hit some good drives eventually lol.

In reply to a post by Banger:

Spotted two Ironwolfs on Ebay @ £60 each and seller assures me they are brand new in original packaging so have sent him an offer and he has accepted. Bound to hit some good drives eventually lol.

Didn't the last scammer say the same thing fella? 😎

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Banger:

Spotted two Ironwolfs on Ebay @ £60 each and seller assures me they are brand new in original packaging so have sent him an offer and he has accepted. Bound to hit some good drives eventually lol.

Didn't the last scammer say the same thing fella? 😎

Just marked them as brand new. Asked several questions and they took ages to dispatch (because from China) only just today the seller replied send back for refund. The Ironwolfs are located in Liverpool and may have Seagate warranty will have to check serial numbers when they arrive.

In reply to a post by Banger:

The Ironwolfs are located in Liverpool and may have Seagate warranty will have to check serial numbers when they arrive.

Third time lucky, I'll keep my fingers crossed for you fella but having followed this thread for some time now it does seem your determination to get a bargain leads you to bad/dishonest sellers. Sometimes its just worth paying the going rate and buying these sorts of things from a reputable company. I'm not the first or second person in this thread who has hinted at that.

I am looking for a bargain. Can't resist Ebay but it's not a problem as they have the money back guarantee if it is not what the punter is expecting. Having said that the £30 WD Red from China AliExpress is due to be delivered tomorrow. So I will be forensically inspecting it.

😂

Might have scored a legit 3TB Red from China. Everything looks legit on SMART although an odd firmware is puzzling me so I have opened a ticket with WD to see if the firmware is legit. Grok reckons its cushty and possibly 95% likely a Grey Market or OEM drive. Hope WD get back to me soon. Have sent them pictures of Crystal Disk and Victoria. On the plus side the drive is recognised by WD Dashboard and WD Kitfox.

Still waiting for WD to check out the 2024 drives but a guy on the WD Community Forum reckons they are fakes as they have a Hitachi PCB (blue not green) with Hitachi part number. I know WD bought Hitachi a while back and it could be a new model with Hitachi Firmware only WD can confirm. The label says WD Red pro but performance matches a standard WD Red. WD Dashboard/Kitfox also recognises them as plain WD Reds. Have sent one back (the expensive one) as I didn't like the look of the latency spikes on the Victoria surface scan.

On the other front the Seagate Ironwolf 4TB ST4000VN006 still in original packaging I am told have shipped. So might see them next week.

Seagate aren't my favourite bits of spinning rust, but I must admit that the IronWolf 12TB drives I've got have been pretty solid workhorses....so long as you don't score get another knock-off 😅

I know what to look for now. https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/hdds/seag...

Will be checking the Serial numbers on the Seagate site too.

Oh and Grok reckons the 2024 WD Reds are legit with an Hitachi influence since WD took over HGST apart from the label Red Pro and Red std. performance - explanation a factory mistake.

Edited by Banger (Sat 08-Mar-25 19:46:24)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Seagate aren't my favourite bits of spinning rust, but I must admit that the IronWolf 12TB drives I've got have been pretty solid workhorses....so long as you don't score get another knock-off 😅

i am not a great fan of Seagate either, but I do have a few of their external drives, a couple of 1TB, 1x4TB and 1x8TB and to be honest they have been okay.
Maybe the one I had years ago that failed on me twice, I was just unlucky with. When I had the third replacement, I gave it to a friend, and they had it in their computer for around 5 years. I went for WD after.

The spinny drive I have in my Windows machine is a 2TB Toshiba drive, have to be over 10 years old and still running well. I think that was one of the reasons why I went with Toshiba N300 drives for my NAS and also they have CMR drives. My only problem with them is that they don't seem to go to sleep, no matter what settings I have the NAS on.
I did toy with the idea of building my own NAS.

As for Banger and him trying to get a bargain, not sure if I would have the patience, prefer to pay a bit more and get something that will last and I am pretty sure is not fake.

I have found a tool for checking Seagates with, https://github.com/gamestailer94/farm-check

Well Ebay seller has stopped talking to me of the Ironwolf 4TB drives after I mentioned I had had 3 fake WD Reds from China and that it was taking a long time for Evri to say they had the drives (Posted Friday).

Went on to Amazon and saw some Ironwolfs 4TB for £76 was just about to checkout then realised it was a marketplace seller so looked at his feedback. Loads of drives returned because the warranty had expired or only a few months left with some buyers reckoning they had checked with the FARM tools mentioned earlier in this thread and the SMART had been reset. So cancelled that order.

Have finally ordered direct from Amazon 2 x 4TB @ £99 ea. If I don't get a legit drive from Amazon direct I will go spare.

Finally.

Years ago and I mean years ago, looking at the original Pentium 1 days or around then, a mate of mine at the time got some second hand drives as drives were very expensive then. I would say from Ebay, but I don't know if Ebay was in the U.K. then. He got I think 5 of them and all five had a problem. I vowed, then, never to buy second hand hard drives.

I can understand this thing to get a bargain, more so if money is a bit tight, but I think maybe getting a new one first and then another later on, unless you are putting them in raid may be the better way of doing it.

That is still cheap for an Iron wolf, I found the listing, or I think I have, it is sold by GreenThumb Technology. Looks like it is an older model, which is fine if it works.

So what are these drives going into, and how will they be used?

In reply to a post by Banger:

it was taking a long time for Evri to say they had the drives (Posted Friday).

Does tracking say its coming via the Evri Gateway?

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Finally.

Years ago and I mean years ago, looking at the original Pentium 1 days or around then, a mate of mine at the time got some second hand drives as drives were very expensive then. I would say from Ebay, but I don't know if Ebay was in the U.K. then. He got I think 5 of them and all five had a problem. I vowed, then, never to buy second hand hard drives.

I can understand this thing to get a bargain, more so if money is a bit tight, but I think maybe getting a new one first and then another later on, unless you are putting them in raid may be the better way of doing it.

That is still cheap for an Iron wolf, I found the listing, or I think I have, it is sold by GreenThumb Technology. Looks like it is an older model, which is fine if it works.

So what are these drives going into, and how will they be used?

They will be used as backup drives once tested with my 2 PCs and Laptop in a dock.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Banger:

it was taking a long time for Evri to say they had the drives (Posted Friday).

Does tracking say its coming via the Evri Gateway?

No just says Ebay Simple Delivery and that they are still waiting for the parcel.

Amazon drives have arrived well packed in nice boxes with manuals and warranty cards. Checking serial numbers warrantied until 3 May 2028. All good running my tests now but not expecting any problems.

You don’t need IronWolf drives. They are designed for continuous use in a NAS. For your use cheaper drives would be more than adequate.

With all the comings and goings of disk drives at your property you could get a knock on the door from trading standards 😎

🤣🤣🤣

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

You don’t need IronWolf drives. They are designed for continuous use in a NAS. For your use cheaper drives would be more than adequate.

Ah well I have opened and registered them now. Besides there is only a tenner between the Ironwolf and Barracuda.

Found out what happened to the Ebay Ironwolfs, Evri didn't pick up from Parcel Shop so got an email from seller saying he had sent them tonight. Tried to cancel but seller said he had posted so will have to be returned.

In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

You don’t need IronWolf drives. They are designed for continuous use in a NAS. For your use cheaper drives would be more than adequate.

Certainly for NAS use or maybe at a pinch in a DAS that is in constant use.
If they are just going into a dock, then as you said a cheaper drive can be used.

Well I tested them then showed the results to Seagate Support. Seagate support advised me to return them after seeing the SMART data for replacement. The reason :- The raw read error rate was too high according to the Victoria app. I have since read on HDDGuru forum after asking the question about the raw read error rate seeming too high according to Seagate Support (for new drives) that this is normal behaviour for Seagate Smart and the poster linked to documents from Seagate showing the raw read error rate (ID 01) is in fact logarithmic not linear.

So on a surface check where all 4TB sectors are read its likely in fact for ID 01 to seem high. All Seagate drives behave this way. You would think Seagate Support would know this. Replacements arrive Thursday from Amazon Direct with Amazon part number.

Try this site https://www.disktuna.com/seagate-raw-smart-attribute...
Enter the Raw Read Error Rate and it tells you what it means.

In my case I had RRER of 30864979
Result: 0 errors in 30,864,979 operations.

Oh good grief, life is far to short, get one from a decent computer parts seller, like Scan.
Pay a bit more, but at least you don't have to bother with all this stuff, unless you like bothering with all this stuff.

In reply to a post by zaggie:

Try this site https://www.disktuna.com/seagate-raw-smart-attribute...
Enter the Raw Read Error Rate and it tells you what it means.

In my case I had RRER of 30864979
Result: 0 errors in 30,864,979 operations.

Thanks for that Zaggie that is what I was told and it might have saved a return if Seagate Support (first line) knew this.

Well received the Ebay Seagate drives today and they check out. Warranty is til 28 April 2028 according to Seagate checker and both have been registered successfully with Seagate. Both have Data recovery plan in place. They came in Amazon envelopes but were inside a protect box. Will be running a conveyance test later but have arranged for the Amazon drives to go back for refund. I found a bargain at last!

In reply to a post by Banger:

I found a bargain at last!

😂

Well looks like Royal Mail have lost my Amazon drives return. Tracking is sitting at 'collected' and has done since Saturday. Have contacted Amazon and they say I will not be charged, we will see if I get a refund.

I've had similar and the package has been delivered the following day.

It's now at the delivery depot. 5 days to get there. Probably get delivered Monday as I don't think Amazon Returns work weekends.