A number of great Seagate HDD prices on Amazon US. Shipped and sold by Amazon. Appears many models have 39% off currently
Seagate IronWolf Pro 20TB - $328.89
Seagate IronWolf Pro 18TB - $279.22
Seagate IronWolf Pro 16TB - $249.30
Seagate IronWolf 12TB - $189.47
Seagate IronWolf 8TB - $129.63
CamelCamelCamel.
Agree with the previous poster - definitely buy at least a 4 bay unit, because you will eventually need to expand.
Got my 2x16tb today, packaged much better than usual
I regret not getting 20tb disks
I did feel the same initially but then thought about what would happen when they broke down outside of warranty will the prices even be affordable at that point to make a replacment?
The point is you need to buy enough disks to account for requiring replacements. Even if you need to send the disk back in warranty, you should have backups of that data and replacement disks as necessary.
is that why people suggest x4 bays? say like (8tb/10tb) 2 for normal use and the last 2 is the backup for the first 2?
is that raid 3/4?
@iLikeSales: Ignore the RAID 4 as it's not available on most NAS in a box products.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.booleanworld.com/raid-level…
For Synology SHR-1 = RAID 5 and SHR-2 = RAID 6.
RAID 0 = Max speed no redundancy, 1 drive fails all data is un-readable
RAID 1 = Mirrored drives 1 for 1 copy, can restore if any drives of one half of the mirror fails
RAID 5 = Minimum 3 drives and 1 for backup data
RAID 6 = Minimum 4 drives and 2 for backup data
I figured buy a newer drive when a disk fails so the failures aren't likely to all happen at the same time.
@vuman619: If a disk isnt doa then it usually lasts depending on use, so if you keep disks in cold storage and not use them, they should still be legitimate replacements for up to the warranty period. So if a disk dies within 3-5 years you got a replacement sitting there and dont have to wait for ordering a new disk and waiting for postage.
Got my 4x 12TB drives today, HDDs were very well packed in secure boxes, was half expecting them to be floating around loose.
Now comes the time consuming job of transferring out my old NAS drives one by one.
Had my 12x 20TB drives delivered today. (Ordered 19th -> Delivered 28th)
HDD's were packed in a larger box consisting of 6 drives in each. Each individual drive was packed in its own box within (Pristine Condition). The HDD box has a certificate labelled on it as follows "This SINGLEWALL box meets all construction requirements of applicable freight classification". Followed up Edge Crush Test (ECT) 32 LBS/IN.
The box doesn't really provide any absorption per say, however its built in a way that places the HDD locked in the middle, away from any of the outer edges/sides of the box, so as internal as it can be.
Additionally, whatever extra space was in the larger delivered box was filled with Air Bags.
All drives tested and 1 of the 12 is DOA. (Constant start up beep/tick noise indicating it cant initialise)
I have registered the drives and already claimed RMA on the one that wont boot up and will be shipped to Sydney tomorrow.
Overall, cant complain with the shipping speed and quality of packaging as I do believe this to be more down to manufacturing issue that mishandling of shipping.
Hope this helps provide some insight to any future HDD purchases through Amazon VIA US when it comes to time/packaging etc.
I have received 2 disks that are DOA. Same as you, clicking and ticking on boot and cant initialise. Amazon has been absolutely terrible to deal with and are not offering a replacement, only a refund. How did you go about doing the RMA?
are not offering a replacement, only a refund.
I had the same issue. I made a complaint to the ACCC and my state consumer affairs. If enough people did too, Amazon wouldn't try and pull this crap.
@bonechiller @SearchAndSave I have an account setup at the following link with Seagate and registered my products with their serial number.
https://myportal.seagate.com/consumer-identity/reg/
On your home dashboard screen where you see your registered products, you can do "Return a Product" which enters you into their RMA process.
Thanks @Konradical!
I have 2 of 6 drives arrived DOA. All 12TB.
They were packed well so can't fault them there, exactly as per Konradical's comments above.
When I put my ear up to the drive it sounds like a light beeping sound and the platters are not spinning.
After some pushing I got Amazon to agree to issue a credit for the cost difference between the old and current price once the new order arrives. I had to pay for the new order outright. First person flat out refused and I asked for the chat to be escalated.
I have another 6 on the way in a second shipment. Fingers crossed that batch arrives ok. At least I have the fall-back of the Seagate DOA replacement if needed.
Just to confirm for others my order for the replacement drives was dispatched and invoiced to me today at the new higher price.
As promised Amazon has refunded the price difference between the original price and the price on the new replacement order.
Now fingers crossed the 2 replacement drives arrive in working condition.
@Lichen6420: Did you order from Amazon US again or Amazon AU?
Have you received the refund for the 2 dead ones you sent back?
@Garbotoxin: I ordered from the US again. I asked for a price difference credit so figured it would have to be the exact same item/seller to be processed.
2 dead drives were refunded as soon as they were sent via Parcel Point drop off, within 24hr of handing them over. Amazon now seems to do international returns via an address in Sydney, they provided a postage label to print and attach same as any other return. No Auspost option was given, only parcelpoint but it was easy and straightforward.
I had to print off a customs return invoice provided by Amazon and give that to the parcel point location separate from the package. I assume they slap an invoice enclosed sticky envelope to the package and throw it in there.
Interestingly the price difference credit was issued against the original order, doesn't matter to me but just seemed an odd way to do it.
Worth nothing I have now written 10+ TB to all the other drives I received with no issues.
@Lichen6420: How was the price difference processed - was it credit to your account or back to your card/original payment method?
Also, did they alter the original price of your order for the replacement drives or did it remain at the new higher price?
@djevoultion: Refund to card but on the original order.
They did ask if it was ok to do as an account credit but I asked for back to card and they obliged.
So i actually have 2 refunds listed on that original order. The return for the 2 drives and the price difference credit.
I actually ended up about $20 ahead because hey didn’t take into account the discount % for buying more than 1 drive.
@Lichen6420: Thanks. So the replacement drives order was untouched . Did you have to wait until the replacement drives were delivered or just posted?
@djevoultion: Yep replacement drive order was left untouched.
They originally said they would credit once delivered but I hit them up via chat as soon as they were shipped and they just processed the credit no questions asked.
@Lichen6420: Thanks they told me the same, that I have to wait until the replacement drive is delivered. I’ll try following up after shipping.
@stringbean402 any chance I can get the chat transcript so I can push them to do the same? cheers!
Doa disks more than likely were mishandled or dropped in the warehouse.
I got mine today. They left the $328.89 box at the front door when I came home. I haven't tested it yet (for DOA).
How would you go about claiming RMA and what address to send to Sydney just in case it happens to mine. Thanks.
Wow how come you have so many?
QNAP TVS-H1688x has 12 bay
He stores all his data for the Dark Web on it. Needs at least 240tb.
Did your drives come in the full cardboard box or the cardboard box with 2 black plastic inserts holding the drives in place?
The drives I received with the black plastic inserts are faulty, and the ones in the cardboard-only box are working fine.
Full cardboard. Only thing plastic was the anti-static bag the drives are packed in.
I have 2 of 6 drives faulty. Full cardboard packaging.
@Lichen6420: Is it DOA? Im still deciding on NAS. But for tons being ordered 3.5" adapter. Can this be used to be find the faulty disk?
@IDontKnowWhyImHere: Yes unfortunately 2 drives DOA. Sounds like a head crash and the platters are not spinning, probably physical shock at some point during shipping.
You can pickup a cheap 3.5" USB adapter to test your drives before you decide on a NAS in the mean time if your worried.
https://www.amazon.com.au/UGREEN-Adapter-Support-Converter-D…
@Lichen6420: Oh thats not good, I have just ordered one and waiting to check it. Thanks for the suggestion. Fingers crossed.
@Lichen6420: Sorry I forgot you will need a power adapter with external power for a 3.5" drive as it can't pull enough from USB. Hopefully it's not too late to cancel your order.
Better off just buying a cheap 3.5" dock like below. Basically the same thing in a chassis with powersupply.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Wavlink-External-Docking-Station-F…
@Lichen6420: Thanks for pointing it out, I read about that and I do have an 12v 2 power adapter for another device so it should be fine. Amazon already shipped it by midnight today. I should have it before evening and I can test the drives. It's scary to see few devices were DOA and my both devices were in card board box but then the outer layer was just plastic cover.
@IDontKnowWhyImHere: Check the power specs very carefully before you try it - the chances of your existing 12v supply being correct are almost zero - it needs the same connector, the same polarity, and at least the same ampage - you generally can't swap DC supplies between different devices…
@Nom: Thanks for the details, I just had a look at the power adapter again and luckily the adapter seems to be an exact match. 12V-2A and center positive polarity with the correct connector :) I was not aware of the polarity so far and thanks for bringing that up Adapter spec
@IDontKnowWhyImHere: @stringbean402 @Nom: Both drives are powering up with the adapter fine and Windows detects it fine. Luckily no DOA in this case. Thanks both.
Any pointers now to validate the disk errors that people are discussing? I have a Windows 10 laptop connected with this setup.
@IDontKnowWhyImHere: Download Hard Disk Sentinel
Just google free licence, it’s usually being given away somewhere.
You can run extended tests on the drive, it’s a handy bit of software, been using it for years
@DnA-bargain: It will not work without an external power adapter since these drives require more power to work which usb alone cannot provide.
@Lichen6420: @konradical well my theory was wrong then. All my cardboard only boxes seem to have been fine, bar one.
Received mine today 2 x 20TB. Well packed, 2 box inside another box, with static bag, you can't get any better packaging then that. Scanning to see if the drive is Ok using SeaTools 5 from https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/downloads/seatools/
Drive Made in Thailand on 20/02/2023.
Pretty amazing it went from Thailand to the US then to Australia in the span of 2 months.
Yup, such a bargain price too, regret not getting more, but 2 drives will do for now.
Should I use long generic or self test?
Both and surface scan too. You want to find faults before you start putting stuff on it !!
surface scan? Is that in seatools as well?
I ordered 4, one DOA. Have to pay to ship it to Seagate in Sydney before they'll send me a new drive. Amazon will only refund the $ no replacement.
Worth the hassle to send to Seagate in the end, the drives register with a 5.2 year warranty and you don't have the shucked/unshucked arguments over external HDD warranty.
So Amazon will refund you the money, and said you can keep the DOA drive? and then you send that to Seagate for replacement?
Nah, one option or the other.
My 12TB arrived and is making clicking sounds. Sigh, back to Amazon.. Reading through the comments there are a very high failure rate on these drives it seems. I think that's why they were cheap.
Edit: so Amazon won't send a replacement? Lame
Bought 1x 20TB IronWolf Pro - also appears to be DOA. Makes continuous clicking noises and not recognised in the BIOS. Changed cables and used different computer as well - exact same problem. Spoke to Amazon - they refuse to offer replacement only refund (which is useless given the drives are now at original price). They suggested going to Seagate for replacement.
My only worry with Seagate is they may send may "re-certified" drives (previously used, repaired and tested) - as per their RMA terms. Not particularly happy to be spending more money on shipping with the risk of getting a previously used and repaired drive instead of a new one.
From experience Seagate will send you a 'certified repaired' drive but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them. I've had these drives last a very long time.
But still, I understand you want a new one, not a refurb.
Do you still get the full warranty with the refurb or is that also the different?
I sent my 20TB to Seagate RMA.
With the acceptance, the replacement notice does state the following: "Replacement products carry the greater of: original warranty balance or 90 days.".
I've done RMA's both with Western Digital and Seagate and haven't had any issues thus far with either companies provided replacement drives.
@Konradical: Ah ok - sounds like you keep the original warranty. I'm curious to see if they send you a new replacement or a refurb. Do you mind letting us know when you get it?
My thought was that with 20TB, they might not have the tooling to do refurbs for helium drives locally and that you would be more likely to get a new one. But it's pure speculation on my part and I'd like to see what happens.
@donfandango: Will do. I'm hoping that they can do the turnover fairly quickly since its issued to Sydney and did priority mail. They should receive it on Monday (Fingers Crossed)
@donfandango: @donfandango Received my replacement HDD from Seagate. It appears to be a brand new drive.
Sticker on the drive is exactly the same (reason why I say that is that every time I had a WD come back from RMA - The original WD drive I sent back had red colouring on it and the returned drive had a white sticker label - identifying it as a refurb).
The packaging was immaculate - best packaging I have seen to date. Entire box cushioned with so much soft packaging foam that there is absolutely no chance of any movement or damage to occur to the drive within it. 16cm of foam on top and bottom with 6cm on either side.
Packaged in brand new Anti Static bag and identified as Product of Thailand. DOM is March 2023.
All things considered, $330 for the drive from Amazon + ~$20-$25 for priority shipping return via Australia Post to Sydney = ~$350-$360 total for the drive.
Well within reason so still be an amazing bargain given the extra 9 Business days to wait for this. Sent back on Sat 29/04/23 and have a replacement on 11/05/23.
Plugged the drive in and immediately runs and quick health disk check's all passed.
Not may, they definitely will send a recertified disk.
The rate of DOA is astonishing…headshake, limitation of mechanical drive when it is in transit.
I doubt it’s transport related.
My guess is they knew they had a bad batch and have offloaded em at this price.
I concur. I might be wrong, but all the drives that have arrived DOA at my end seem to be from the same batch with the older style packaging.
What batch was that?
Out of thousands of orders we've had about 9 people report DOAs so far - this isn't astonishing, it's just normal 🤷🏼♂️
This was definitely a good observation at the time. However I can now confirm 4/14 drives were DOA. I could be wrong and extremely unlucky, but gee that's a high rate of DOA!
My 2x20Tb arrived and so far so good.
No strange noises, got recognised and formatted and all good.
Did the Short Self Test and the Two Minute Test through SeaTools, and SMART values are all ok.
Do you recommend doing the other Extended Tests as well? Long Self Test or Long Generic Test?
Mine 2 x 20TB seems OK too, but with the 20TB in size you don't want to mess around with losing that much data, worth doing the long test. I'll let it run overnight.
To test my disks i do a long format first, then an extended test. If you put the disk under extreme duress for 40+ hours will be a good test to make sure the disk lasts.
Out of 20 years worth of disks ive only ever had 1 disk fail after doing this test. If the disk fails within the stress test period then you dodged a bullet.
What app do you recommend? the seagate one ok?
I use seatools for seagate and Data lifeguard for WD.
Can I ask which extended test? Self test or generic?
@mith: Generic - If you need a more comprehensive test then consider running the “Long Generic”, which reads each sector on the drive.
@garetz I see many options in long and short format, could you suggest which one to use for both short and long?
Short test is just looking at the smart results which does not help you really stress test the disk.
I use Long Self Test
Can anyone comment on how loud the 20TB drives are if you're using them as storage in a PC — are they loud even when not actively in use?
Are they much louder than the WD shucked white labels? I have 14TB helium-filled WD white labels and they're acceptably quiet, though not silent like the 4TB WD Blues I have. I leave mine as always spinning though, so that probably helps.
The 20 TB drives are definitely loud. I have WD helium drives in the NAS and they are hardly audible. But the Ironwolf drives are definitely noticeable especially during startup and during read-write operations.
My 3x 18TB just arrived, can't say the packaging is great with just the 3 boxes thrown in a bag (at least they were put in another box last time I ordered internal drives from amazon).
Doing a quick test on the first one now and after I get done with the other two I'll run extended tests on them.
Yes, extended test is need it, I'm still running it now on my 20TB, takes ages about 20hrs to complete.
Thankfully my 4x 12TB drives seem to be ok, I gradually added them to my NAS (HP Micro server) and everything is working great, still in the process of duplicating files and scanning the drives. I'm using Stablebit Drivepool and the Scanner if anyone is interested.
I feel bad for those who got faulty drives. I'm not sure if it was Amazon that did anything shady (as some people have suggested) as in the past I've had brand new drives bought locally be DOA out of the box.
1 x 12TB arrived in a sealed antistatic bag within a decent cardboard box (no signs of damage or miss-handling). DOA, just beeps and doesn't register on any machine I try. Have ordered 20 or so drives online over the years, first that has ever been DOA, so cant complaint too much.
I did online chat help. First agent just told me I could return then reorder (they would give me a refund for the difference in price). Asked to be emailed with that instead of relying on a chat. Transferred me to another agent who had "email" privileges.
Explained situation again (threw in some polite references to "ACCC/Australian Consumer Rights") and I think I found a good middle ground. Free return label, once received they will issue me with a Amazon credit to repurchase the item (with any difference in price covered by the gift card). This way I dont need to buy anything again on my card or have the hassle of claiming back anything. That's a win for me personally.
Suggest everyone checks their drives ASAP - there is something very wrong with the number of these being DOA!
The only failures or DOAs we know about are the ones posted here, we don't know the percentage or how many drives have been sold.
Got my 20tb drive, like others I wish I got another 3 :)
Its a 2/14/2023 thailand drive and is working fine so far, it was packed in a brown protective box.
Same model, origin, date and packaging… DOA.
Purchased 2 x 18TB Ironwolf Pros and 1 x 8TB Ironwolf.
Received today 30/4/2023.
1 x 18TB Ironwolf Pro does not initialise, clicking sounds etc. Looks like I join the others in the DOA club. :(
Thankfully the other 2 are working, so far anyways, fingers crossed, I will be only using it for loads of Linux ISOs so its not mission critical.
Got my 16tb pro delivered, and bought a QNAP TS-233 from ebay. I have a 16tb in my PC and also back that up offline so won't bother with any nas RAID. Using a single static volume nice and simple. If the disk tests ok and has no errors on install, you'd be stiff if it fails considering mtbf is 1.2 million hours as long as you leave it in peace:
https://www.seagate.com/www-content/datasheets/pdfs/ironwolf…
Mine will contain all media including photos for our TVs and computers. Only using Kodi and Plex so far, and disk mounting media as a drive in Windows. Running well, transferring at around 900mb/s.I put an old 4TB in the other nas slot for I don't know what yet.
fyi TS-233 Plex server handles 1080p files well.
I suggest using xcopy /s/d/y for copying across initially and updating for future changes. Easy.
Thought I'd add to the DOA saga.
Boight 8x18tb and 6x20tb.
The 8x18tb have arrived and the 20tbs are still in transit. 2x18tb were DOA, other 6 seem fine but are currently undergoing long self tests…
For reference the drives were packed In 2 lots of 4x(did 2 orders of 4x to avoid inport charges) of the same "hassle free packaging" (cardboard boxes) within a larger box.
The 2 failed drives were out of the same order and both have a DOM of 27/10/22
Now to see If I can get Amazon to send 2x 18tbs for the same price or need to RMA with Seagate… I'm certainly not going to pay the current prices for 2 more drives.
Amazon will offer to refund, you need to register the disks with the manufacturer, and make an rma claim through them if you want replacement disks.
What’s the minimum test a drive should pass before you consider it DOA? I don’t have time yet to do extended tests on all 8 drives I ordered but all of them were successfully partitioned, reformatted, and passed a 1min short self-test in HD Sentinel. SMART values look fine as well.
My 2 drives were not initialising at all. Just lots of clicking. Tried multiple PCs as well. Currently testing the 6 "good" drives witha long self test in hd sentinel (this takes over a day).
Update:
Have now properly tested all 6x18TB and they are all good.
Unfortunately 2x of the 6x20TB are also DOA. Now properly testing the other 4 to make sure they work properly.
Bit disappointed with 4 out of 14 drives being DOA :(
Ordered 4x 18TB, received 4x 16TB…what a joke Amazon….
that means someone else ordered 4x16tb and received 4x18tb instead.
Thanks for the suggestion, I was thinking about it then thought I may not use 4 drives but could be handy for upgrade in future.