A lot of you are probably aware of this already, but I just want to share my experience with others in hopes that people won't make the same mistake I did. I purchased a Western Digital Black 2TB hard drive off of Amazon from a seller (not sure if it's okay to name them here?). I didn't realize until later that it wasn't sold by Amazon, but only fulfilled. The condition it lists is new and I didn't really think about someone packaging up an old hard drive and selling it on Amazon. I got the drive in and after unpacking it, it looked perfectly new. It was in a static bag, clam shell package. So I got it hooked up and started installing the operating system. I have no complaints about the drive itself. It worked well and was quick, there weren't any relocated sectors reported in SMART (in HD Sentinel and others), but I hadn't looked at the Power on Hours until a few days later I'm just checking out all of my drives. What prompted this was the fact that when I went to register the drive for warranty WD said it was out of warranty since 2016. Okay, I thought, maybe it's just been sitting around for a while, but I supposedly bought it new? So I looked over the SMART data again. That's when I noticed it had around 2 years, ~240 days, and some hours of use. I thought that that's just ridiculous, but after consulting Reddit and coming to the conclusion that it can't be wrong, I accepted that I was scammed. I don't think Amazon cares since past reviews of the seller mention that the drives failed early quickly, out of warranty,or already used. Honestly I should have paid attention more, but that doesn't excuse the seller. Nor does it excuse Amazon for allowing these people to scam people. The drive reported only 15 start/stop counts, but someone pointed out that it was probably used in a server or something that's always powered on. I can't find anything else besides the power on time count. And honestly the start/stop is probably twice as much as I'd cycled it. Being used for 23446 hours it really high. It isn't even a barely used drive. Just be careful when buying on Amazon. Check the vendors. Many of them are probably selling old hard drives labeled as new. Most people just don't know to check the SMART data. I cannot post links yet to the data, so I'll just list some here: Hard Disk Model ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : WDC WD2003FZEX-00Z4SA0 Firmware Revision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 01.01A01 Current Temperature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 36 °C Maximum Temperature (Ever Measured) . . . . . . : 39 °C, 6/29/2019 4:05:40 AM Minimum Temperature (Ever Measured) . . . . . . : 23 °C, 7/2/2019 7:03:50 PM Power On Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 976 days, 22 hours Estimated Remaining Lifetime . . . . . . . . . . : more than 848 days Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : #################### 100 % (Excellent) Performance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : #################### 100 % (Excellent) The hard disk status is PERFECT. Problematic or weak sectors were not found and there are no spin up or data transfer errors. No actions needed. ATA Features -------------- Read Ahead Buffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported, Enabled DMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Ultra DMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported S.M.A.R.T. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Power Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Write Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Host Protected Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported HPA Security Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Advanced Power Management . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported Extended Power Management . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported Power Up In Standby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported 48-Bit LBA Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Device Configuration Overlay . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported IORDY Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Read/Write DMA Queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported NOP Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Trusted Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported 64-Bit World Wide ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 50014EE2618F1488 Streaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported Media Card Pass Through . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported General Purpose Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Error Logging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported CFA Feature Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported CFast Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported Long Physical Sectors (8) . . . . . . . . . . . : Supported Long Logical Sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported Write-Read-Verify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported NV Cache Feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported NV Cache Power Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported NV Cache Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported Free-fall Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported Free-fall Control Sensitivity . . . . . . . . . : Not supported Service Interrupt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : Not supported IDLE IMMEDIATE Command With UNLOAD Feature . . . : Not supported Nominal Media Rotation Rate . . . . . . . . . . : 7200 RPM S.M.A.R.T. Details -------------------- S.M.A.R.T. ------------ No. Attribute Thre.. Value Worst Data Status 1 Raw Read Error Rate 51 200 200 0 OK 3 Spin Up Time 21 220 156 7983 OK 4 Start/Stop Count 0 100 100 16 OK (Always passing) 5 Reallocated Sectors Co.. 140 200 200 0 OK 7 Seek Error Rate 0 200 200 0 OK (Always passing) 9 Power On Time Count 0 68 68 23446 OK (Always passing) 10 Spin Retry Count 0 100 253 0 OK (Always passing) 11 Drive Calibration Retr.. 0 100 253 0 OK (Always passing) 12 Drive Power Cycle Count 0 100 100 16 OK (Always passing) 16 Vendor-specific 0 4 196 1425640271 OK (Always passing) 192 Power off Retract Cycl.. 0 200 200 9 OK (Always passing) 193 Load/Unload Cycle Count 0 200 200 9 OK (Always passing) 194 Disk Temperature 0 116 113 36 OK (Always passing) 196 Reallocation Event Count 0 200 200 0 OK (Always passing) 197 Current Pending Sector.. 0 200 200 0 OK (Always passing) 198 Off-Line Uncorrectable.. 0 200 200 0 OK (Always passing) 199 Ultra ATA CRC Error Co.. 0 200 200 0 OK (Always passing) 200 Write Error Rate 0 200 200 0 OK (Always passing) Transfer Rate Information --------------------------- Total Data Read . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 5,668 MB, 440,881 MB since installation (6/29/2019) Total Data Write . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 2,055 MB, 1,303,939 MB since installation Average Reads Per Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 110,220.25 MB Average Writes Per Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 325,984.75 MB Current Transfer Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 456 KB/s Maximum Transfer Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 102069 KB/s Current Read Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 KB/s Current Write Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 456 KB/s Current Disk Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . : 0 %
Ive been buying hdds from Scan since 2007, i may use CCL as they have been good up to now. I get my ssd's direct from Crucial, apart from those 3 i wont buy from anywhere else. Back in the dark days i bought a "new" hdd from a local shop, bastard died within a few weeks. Found out later it was one of those bloody awful MDT drives, have been very picky ever since. Had a Seagate certified repaired hdd that ran hot but lasted well.
Not just Amazon, the exact same is eBay and Alibaba. I don't know others. And this is one great black humor when someone talks here about a "30 day return policy". Apparently, he hasn't been particularly in touch with things and believes what has been written somewhere. Real life is very different. Everything I said is a personal experience. The only thing that can help you, it is to buy only products that haven't been in production for a long time. Then there is a chance that you will get less cheat. But usually all products have been in use more or less time. I don't speak about such a products, what the same owner have at least hundreds, not only one or some. So I fully believe (and agree) that you can get old hard drives that have been used on servers, especially if you buy drives at least 1TB or higher.
Amazon is one of the better places to ask for a return. It certainly won't hurt anything to ask for a refund but unless you have a prime account you can count on coughing up the cost to return it. I too found out a very long time ago to be very picky about where and who you get your hard drives from.
I’ve definitely learned from this that you can’t trust these places anymore for things like this. I’ve already got a return ticket open. I just need to drop it off some place. Even if it were to last for years to come that’s not what I paid for. I checked out CCL and it looks like a really store! Unfortunately o don’t live in the EU.
@Hoblord2000 , As for Amazon returns I was the same got return ticket printed out the return Label and had to take it to a shop that used their delivery service it was free of charge. I could have got it picked up from home but that was error on my side picked wrong returns option
From what I've experienced,Amazon is pretty good with regards to their return policy. What peeves me is when I buy something from Amazon, they do not lock or extract the funds from my debit card until they ship. That sometimes creates a problem for me, because I think I have more funds on the card then I actually do.
Remember a while back when people were getting cpus from amazon and they wernt what they were boxed as or what they said on the heat spreader? That said ive had one or 2 motherboards from amazon(them not from a vendor on there) and it/they were good.
They looked kosher so i ordered a few bits n bobs from them, blank dvds, dvd drive, printer, one at a time ya know and didnt have any problems and would be happy placing a large order with them. Scan have been problem free, you get a 1 hour time slot on delivery day and they are always within that hour. Graeme at KustomPCs in Ayr has been a diamond in the past and very helpful. He has even ordered stuff from akasa that he didnt stock for me Scan, CCLonline, Crucial UK, KustomPCs Wouldnt use overclockers uk again, absolute shyte.
His old place was down a back alley , new place looks good. He is a goldmine for silly but important stuff, cables switches etc. Cheapest delivery from the big places is like £5 +vat, with Graeme he ships Royal Mail and its cheaper, why pay £8/9 for a sodding sata cable when with graeme its part plus a couple of quid. If i can catch his time cutoff i get his stuff the following morning, from 1 country(officially) to another(london burbs) in less than 24hours I swear the bloody post office do better with distance deliveries than they do short hops, must be the ol bolivian marching powder Looking at google maps the architecture where the old shop was is weird, definitely other countries influences
Return the HD get your money back....remember 90% of all merchandise sold by amazon comes from a third party vendor. WD has a bad rep over the years are u sure u didnt buy a refurbished?
This is what bothers me, not the power on hours. If I'm reading this right and it it has 140 reallocated (bad) sectors, that tells me you're right about the drive being pulled from a server (from the power on hours and low read and write count) because of a reallocated sector rate above zero which indicates a drive that may fail. Big data centers pull a drive if that value is anything but zero. Somehow it was repackaged and pushed out as a new drive. Having said that, the drive will probably be okay, only time will tell. I read a study by Google where they analyzed the failure rate of spinning hard drives in their server farms. It said if the drive stays under 40 degrees C it usually lasts a long time, and if it goes over 45 degrees C they have a high failure rate (I'm citing this from memory). That agrees with my own personal experience. I bought a 500 GB Seagate PATA hard drive (ST3500641A) around 2006, and it meant a lot to me because it was a lot of storage space at the time, so I always had a fan pointed at it to keep it cool. It's 13 years old and still works fine. It's a little out of place with my sata hard drives and OS drive SSD, but why not use it if it works? I just store data on it anyway. This is SMART data 5 for it that I checked just now: 5,Reallocated Sectors Count,36,100,100,OK