Well, just got my new NVR drive Exos X18 16TB from AliExpress and thought I'd share here.
Paid around $300 AUD arrived in 9 days plugged straight into the NVR and whisper quiet just as my old 4TB Ironwolf was.
Warranty a joke
But the specs on them, either it will be DOA or last a long time, and not being a NAS if it dies it's not the end of the world for me.
It's only hours old, I'll update if things head south.
I grabbed some 14Tb HC530's for $12/Tb from the same time. Cannot believe how good of a deal they were! I think they were all like 14-16 total power-ons over their lifetime, and nothing but a good experience with East Digital.
I'd check if the hard drive really has the specs. Since people sell storage on alibaba where it reports as being 16TB only to turn out to be 1TB hard drive that's been modified.
Wtf.. That's a thing?!
Fake stickers?
Yep just like flash drives. OP has already proven theirs are real by looking up the serial number with Seagate.
How hard do you think is to fake a serial number?
@SarcasticEmu: How hard do you think it is to test if a drive has the stated capacity or not? As easy as looking up a serial number, albeit with a longer wait.
@Clear: You can just use tools to can reach the capacity. The issue is that it's entirely possible for the serial to be faked, especially if it's from China.
Did you run disk software like crystal disk or hard disk sentinal to check it's health is good?
I purchased a WD Ultrastar 16TB WUH721816ALE6L4 SATA DC HC550 3.5" LFF Enterprise Hard Drive from East Digital for $217 - been using since 04 Feb (shipping took 5 days). No complaints, ran a scan on CrystalDiskInfo and nothing. All new drives.
Honestly didn't even know Aliexpress sold them!