East Digital Exos "New" Not So New

macmanluke on 31/01/2025 - 00:00
Last edited 31/01/2025 - 09:25 by 1 other user

With a story about a heap of Seagate drives being sold as new but used in Germany

Came across this tool which can check farm hours on Seagate drives which can be compared with smart power on hours to see if drives are truly new

Well as kinda expected all 3 of my 16tb x16/x18 Exos drives currently in my server had 15,000-17,000 hours on them at the time the smart power on hours were wiped with manufacture dates being 2021/22 and the price I was always suspicious. Got 2 more still in the box which are no doubt the same.

I'd have likely still bought them if they were honest being they are half the local price but not sure I'd like to encourage the behaviour.

Computing Computer Component Hard Drive Seagate

Related Stores

East Digital, Hong Kong
East Digital, Hong Kong

Comments

  • Bruceflix on 31/01/2025 - 00:10
    -1

    Fine for storing "Linux ISOs". Wouldn't put valuable data on them

    • macmanluke on 31/01/2025 - 00:19
      +3

      eh not really any worse than the 6-8tb drives they replaced with 50,000hrs+
      and run dual parity (eg 2 drive failure safe)

  • CyberMurning on 31/01/2025 - 00:43
    +1

    So can we complain to the seller and send proof etc?

    • netjock on 31/01/2025 - 10:10

      Can't trust anybody these days. It is like the wild west!

  • bazingaa on 31/01/2025 - 09:56
    +1

    For Windows:

    https://output.circle-artifacts.com/output/job/4c0f6a4b-c439…

    smartctl -l farm sda

    I have 3 * 16 TB drives:

    Drive 1: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    Power on Hours: 22824
    Spindle Power on Hours: 3762

    Drive 2: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    Power on Hours: 30255
    Spindle Power on Hours: 2026

    Drive 3: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    Power on Hours: 12878
    Spindle Power on Hours: 12831

    so looks like Drive 3 is kinda brand new isn't it ?

    • netjock on 31/01/2025 - 10:11

      Did you buy these new or the refurb units?

      I got 2KK103 as refurb. I'm surprised your drive 3 is pretty much new.

      I also got a 2TW103 (X18)

      • bazingaa on 31/01/2025 - 10:19
        +1

        I got drive 3 from EastDigital Ebay for $310, as I remember it had 2022 DOM and I got it in mid 2023.
        other two are from EastDigital website (https://east-digital.myshopify.com/) and got later 2024 ($259 & $289), as I remember both had 2021 DOM.

        all 3 were new stock, not used

        • netjock on 31/01/2025 - 10:33
          +1

          So from the data it looks like 1 & 2 were not new but sold as new?

    • c64 on 31/01/2025 - 10:15
      +1

      still got a year or two of life left in them yet :)

      i'm guessing the fraudsters wiping the SMART data weren't aware of the presence of the FARM data. they'll be more thorough in future …

  • c64 on 31/01/2025 - 10:49

    interesting fact: apparently SMART data is stored in reserved sectors on the platters of the drive, not in the BIOS or controller IC.

  • mooseca on 31/01/2025 - 11:06
    +1

    Damn mine is pretty old, guess that explains the price.

    Power on Hours: 29182 from farm
    Power on Hours: 5425 from regular smartctl

    Installed around May last year

  • tanksinatra on 31/01/2025 - 12:04

    Wait… so does this tool confirm that east digital has been wiping smart data and fraudulently selling new drives as used?

    • tanksinatra on 31/01/2025 - 12:33
      +1

      I just ran smartmontools on my 'new' ST16000NM001G-2KK103 from EastDigital that I bought about six months ago.
      I get the following outputs:

      Power on Hours: 23454
      Spindle Power on Hours: 4407

      The 'Spindle' hours seems to match my 4412 hours in Crystal Disk Info.
      But the 'Power on Hours' figure is much much greater, suggesting my 'new' drive has actually been used for 2.2 years.

      I'm devastated! This drive is holding important information.

      • FiveDarrah on 02/03/2025 - 23:25

        Important information should be stored in at least 3 different locations. 2 physical and one cloud should be sufficient.

        Hardware can fail at any time regardless of how new or used they are.

    • c64 on 31/01/2025 - 15:05
      +5

      it's hard to definitively say it is east digital, but it is happening somewhere in the supply chain. if they continue selling the drives as new then they are knowingly scamming people

  • theguwithnoname on 31/01/2025 - 13:04
    +6

    This is kinda huge isn't it? Since it confirms east digital is actually wiping SMART data like some people have been saying?

    Good timing actually, I was about to buy several 14tb drives from them. Pushes back my plans to finally build a proper NAS, but probably for the best.

  • sunny boi on 31/01/2025 - 16:21
    +3

    Purchased a 'new' 18tb exos x18 from eastdigital start of 2024, turns out to be used with a power on hours of 20,584 and spindle hours of 3,356.

    Have sent a message through ebay so we'll see how that goes.

    • robeh on 09/02/2025 - 14:01

      Any update?

      • sunny boi on 09/02/2025 - 14:04
        +2

        They could only offer a replacement or refund if I sent my hard drive back first, but they have removed their new hard drives from their ebay store and followed up with their supplier.

        Email:
        We have received similar feedback recently, and we will also verify the situation with the supplier.
        At the same time, we will stop selling this product and make a decision after confirmation.
        You can return the hard drive, and we will refund you once we receive it.
        Yankee
        Sales Manager

  • pegaxs on 31/01/2025 - 16:41

    Yikes… right when I was about to pull the trigger on some of their drives… I guess it's kind of expected though when their "new" HDD prices are half RRP. Has to be some corners getting cut somewhere.

  • AB100 on 31/01/2025 - 17:22

    I could only see 1 of my drives on Windows 10 with the command "smartctl -l farm sda".
    After a lot of messing around I found the following commands work:
    "smartctl -l farm sda" or "smartctl -l farm pd0" (zero) shows the first drive
    "smartctl -l farm pd1" shows the second drive
    "smartctl -l farm pd2" shows the third drive
    Just continue going one number higher each time to see your drives.

    If you get the message "unable to detect device type", you most likely don't have any more drives installed.

    If you get the message "NVME device successfully opened", but no other information, you've come across one of your NVME drives, this requires you to use either of these commands as you can't use the "farm" command on the NVME drives. The information provided is formatted differently, but you will be able to see the "Power On Hours"
    "smartctl -a pd3" or "smartctl -x pd3" (substitute "3" for whatever number you used when you got the "NVME device successfully opened" message).

    (Tested on 18tb Exos drives,10tb Barracuda pro's, WD black NVME, and Firecuda NVME drive).

    • AB100 on 31/01/2025 - 17:43

      All 3 of my 18tb Exos drive purchased in 2022, with manufacture dates of 2021 (1), and 2022 (2), show almost the same POH and spindle hours. So it looks like my drives are OK.
      POH: 4680 (3)
      Spindle: 4666 (2) 4663 (1)

  • MetalPhreak on 01/02/2025 - 00:37
    +1

    Checked my 20TB drives (9x). 5x from East Dig. and 4 from server part deals. 07/2023 purchase. All have 13,000hrs which checks out.

  • vorsprung on 01/02/2025 - 09:18
    +2

    First two purchased from Amazon, last one from East Digital brand new a few months ago.

    === Checking device: /dev/sdb ===
    SMART: 15393
    FARM: 15393
    RESULT: PASS

    === Checking device: /dev/sdc ===
    SMART: 15785
    FARM: 15785
    RESULT: PASS

    === Checking device: /dev/sdd ===
    SMART: 2422
    FARM: 30763
    RESULT: FAIL

    It was pretty obvious that something dodgy was going on, how can they sell hard drives for less than half the price of other retailers. I won't buy any more from them… but if these drives last a few years I've still gotten value of out of them. My data is protected by a parity drive in Unraid, so as long as only one drive fails I'll survive.

    • c64 on 01/02/2025 - 11:45

      fark! over 3 years old!

      does the FARM data show anything other interesting hidden information? the script only checks for power on hours. possibly reallocated sectors, write counters, etc could have been erased as well?

      • vorsprung on 01/02/2025 - 14:18
        +1

        FARM: https://pastebin.com/yyzDHTmd
        SMART: https://pastebin.com/ac2Y0FFw

        Reallocated sectors seem to mirror smart.

        Assuming Total_LBAs_Written / Total_LBAs_Read aligns to the FARM Logical Sectors Written / Logical Sectors Read, then it's quite different. Quick googling suggests these are the same, but I'm not sure.

        Write 3.5x higher:
        129631670453 vs 36705289312

        Read 82x higher:
        5067927158143 vs 61518001151

        • c64 on 02/02/2025 - 17:38

          it has been serving a bit a data :) logical sector size is reported as 512B, so i assume that means total data written is ~60 TB (probably not that bad) and total data read is ~2,359 TB

  • Clear on 01/02/2025 - 21:20
    +1

    You'll find that a lot of them are using SeDiv to clear SMART from the drives. It's paid software that's regularly updated and a very powerful/complex tool for data recovery if you know what you're doing. A lot of the Melbourne/Sydney recovery companies use it.

    Last time I checked the demo will clear SMART from Seagate drives no issue. It makes me wonder if this other data can be cleared.

    • skillet on 06/02/2025 - 12:42

      The real labs use MRT or PC3000. You can clear seagate SMART just by issuing F3 command no special software required just usb-serial cable.

      • Clear on 10/02/2025 - 14:39

        Yes you are right they are good tools. I've always wanted to try out the PC3000.

  • doperst on 02/02/2025 - 12:23
    +1

    I'm so glad I stumbled upon this post! Ordered a "new" drive from their AU ebay store two days ago. Yesterday I messaged them asking to cancel my order and they refunded it straight away.

  • fr05ty on 08/02/2025 - 08:19
    +3

    i have noticed as of yesterday most of the new drives have dissipated off the E.D. shopify web store

    • c64 on 08/02/2025 - 10:32

      they're still selling FR seagate drives manufactured in 2021. what is the likelihood they have also been used, wiped and resold (in addition to the factory refurbishing) ?

      • fr05ty on 09/02/2025 - 06:03

        Yeah they might be able to say even though its s.m.a.r.t. has been wiped/reset ot zero that it has been done by seagate, but its still hard to trust them now

      • vorsprung on 09/02/2025 - 10:52
        +1

        https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/hdds/seagate-resp…

        Heise.de noted that some of its readers did receive refurbished drives, but they were used for at least 15,000 hours, according to a Field Accessible Reliability Metrics (FARM) query. Seagate told the German outlet that it resets the usage time according to FARM, so a refurbished drive that hasn’t yet been used shouldn’t report thousands of hours of wear. It would seem that these drives were used, refurbished by Seagate, used again, and then resold as freshly refurbished models.

        Very likely.

        • skillet on 11/02/2025 - 09:17
          +1

          Seagate refurbished drives are laser marked 'Recertified' on the casing. Requires significant effort to remove it.

          • vorsprung on 11/02/2025 - 11:01

            @skillet: I'm not suggesting (and the article is not alleging) they're trying to masquerade 'Recertified' drives as brand new.

            They are taking Seagate 'Factory Recertified' drives that have been in the wild for many years (after already being sold as 'Factory Recertified' drives), resetting smart data to zero, and then selling them as 'Factory Recertified' drives with "zero hours runtime" (i.e. zero hours since Seagate recertified them).

            • eug on 11/02/2025 - 13:30

              @vorsprung: Do the ED refurbished drives have the Recertified laser engraving on it?

              • vorsprung on 11/02/2025 - 13:54

                @eug: Don't know, I haven't bought any FR drives from them. I would assume so.

              • skillet on 12/02/2025 - 09:53

                @eug: All I know is if you returned a drive for a warranty claim, Seagate will send you a laser marked Factory Recertified drive including a new label also with Recertified Product printed on it. If they don't have the same capacity, they will contact you before sending a FR drive with larger capacity or a brand new drive. This often happens if we returned 10+ drives in a go.

                • eug on 12/02/2025 - 11:10

                  @skillet: Yup I've received those drives before, I was wondering if the ED drives also have that marking. If they don't, then the suggestion that they're taking Seagate recertified drives and resetting them wouldn't be right. If they do, that could be a possibility.

                  Do you have any unused Seagate factory recertified drives still lying around? Does the FARM hours get reset too?

    • nugstar on 09/02/2025 - 00:05
      +3

      They've cancelled my recent "new exos" order claiming they're now "Out of stock", despite it being in stock when I ordered. Guess ED are trying to avoid having to deal with a bunch of extra returns from this issue.

      • eug on 09/02/2025 - 00:26
        +4

        Not surprised ED is having problems with hard .. um.. disks.

  • quickreactor on 09/02/2025 - 08:33
    +1

    Checked my 2x 16TB and sure enough 18k and 22k hours!

    Had anyone had any luck getting refund/replacement from ED? I emailed them but not holding much hope

    • vorsprung on 09/02/2025 - 10:46

      They offered me a refund, purchased 3 months ago. For the price I paid, I decided to keep them.

      • quickreactor on 10/02/2025 - 08:39

        Yeah, the hassle of sending them back, rebuying at higher price and transferring everything is probably not worth.

  • Yuri Lowell on 09/02/2025 - 16:04
    +2

    Bought 2x X18 16TB from East Digital and also got scammed:

    Power on Hours: 18909
    Spindle Power on Hours: 1606

    Power on Hours: 18907
    Spindle Power on Hours: 1605

    It's interesting that both my drives have near identical hours, same batch perhaps?

    Not too annoyed because they were cheap and I use a RAID configuration so if one goes bad, I should be okay. Still lesson learned and those doubting East Digital legitimacy were right…

  • um on 10/02/2025 - 16:05
    +3

    My east digital drives from a year ago (2x 12tb exos x16) pass fine

    === Checking device: /dev/sdb ===
    SMART: 6377
    FARM: 6378
    RESULT: PASS

    === Checking device: /dev/sdc ===
    SMART: 6358
    FARM: 6359
    RESULT: PASS

  • AB100 on 11/02/2025 - 17:10
    +2

    Read an article today suggesting that the used Seagate drives sold as new, have been traced back to Chia crypto mining farms in china.
    https://www.techspot.com/news/106706-used-seagate-drives-sol…

    • c64 on 11/02/2025 - 17:38
      +1

      drives that just keep on giving …

    • RedHab on 21/02/2025 - 14:12

      Yep, myself and a few others posted a warning about this almost a year ago about these Chia drives with wiped SMART.

  • mrhugo on 12/02/2025 - 22:22

    It was pretty clear to me once smart values could be reset shady operators could use it to their advantage. For me this ruled Seagate out.

    There were people who said their drives appeared new, but had physical damage on the data pins, and others that failed within a year.

    I am a East Digital customer owning several 18TB WD drives, sold with ~10K hours, all of my are closer to ~19K.

    The current price of 18TB used isn't much less than getting a WD essentials drive from USA and shucking.

    Hopefully with this info sales tank and the price comes down.

  • DigitalAnalog on 12/02/2025 - 23:18
    +1

    I wonder if this is a Seagate-exclusive issue, or because only Seagate drives have FARM data to cross-check against SMART data?

  • jokingsplits on 14/02/2025 - 10:59

    Has anyone tried Amazon refurbished as an alternative?
    https://amzn.asia/d/3lEKyZT

    Or seagate refurbished directly through Amazon or ebay?

    • c64 on 14/02/2025 - 12:41

      Has anyone tried Amazon refurbished as an alternative?

      just look at the feedback. you get a used 3 year old drive year old drive with 1 year warranty. ymmv

  • bazingaa on 16/02/2025 - 12:51
    +1

    Has anyone found a new place to get cheaper 16TB or more drives?

    • frugaljerk on 21/02/2025 - 20:41

      Interested to know as well. Looking around, I found Metrocom selling 4 year old WD HC550s here: https://metrocom.com.au/shop/computers-tablets-networking/dr… at least they're honest about how old they are I guess.

      I picked a terrible week to start buying parts for a NAS.

      • bazingaa on 22/02/2025 - 10:41

        same available at ED in used section, they have stopped selling new X16s now. As this happened all over the world, could be a supplier issue to ED as well.

      • c64 on 22/02/2025 - 12:02
        +1

        the same seller sells on amazon but with 12 month warranty https://www.amazon.com.au/Western-Digital-Ultrastar-7200RPM-… . you can check out the feedback there

        there's also neology

        i've never bought HDDs from either of them. i suspect they all come from the same supplier

  • jazzza on 17/02/2025 - 11:13
    +1

    Is this why their stores (ebay/shopify) are almost empty now?

  • skooter on 21/02/2025 - 20:29

    Hmm just bought 2x 12gb exos recertified from east digital and they’re both showing 0 FARM and 0 SMART… didn’t expect that 🤔

    • vorsprung on 21/02/2025 - 22:57
      +1

      Great success!

      Or they’ve figured out how to reset the FARM values now as well 😉.

      • skooter on 22/02/2025 - 00:46

        Ordered only a couple of days after the story came out, so they did well if that’s the case.

        I haven’t been able to work out if the farm values get reset when seagate recertifies them. If that’s the case it makes sense and I might’ve scored a couple of legit newly recertified drives

        And yeah the counters definitely work.. up to 1 hour now 🙂

    • c64 on 22/02/2025 - 09:25

      what is the drive's date of manufacture?

      does the serial number appear on seagate's warranty checker?

      • skooter on 22/02/2025 - 23:10

        January & March 2020. Warranty check says to contact place of sale

  • Untameable on 24/02/2025 - 01:37

    I got the same results on 8x EXOS X18.

    === Checking device: /dev/sata1 ===

    SMART: 8878
    FARM: 23674
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking device: /dev/sata2 ===

    SMART: 8878
    FARM: 23417
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking device: /dev/sata3 ===

    SMART: 8877
    FARM: 23672
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking device: /dev/sata4 ===

    SMART: 8877
    FARM: 23679
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking device: /dev/sata5 ===

    SMART: 8877
    FARM: 23407
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking device: /dev/sata6 ===

    SMART: 8877
    FARM: 23416
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking device: /dev/sata7 ===

    SMART: 8357
    FARM: 22888
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking device: /dev/sata8 ===

    SMART: 8358
    FARM: 22892
    RESULT: FAIL

  • crossgun on 24/02/2025 - 11:38

    Adding to the pile here from East Digital and their eBay store - bought five "new" 6TB Exos drives and they all failed the check badly:

    TIME DEVICE MODEL NAME SERIAL NUMBER POWER ON TIME DIFF STATUS RUNTIME

    [2025-02-24 08:41:36] SMART: /dev/sg0 [SKIP] 24ms
    [2025-02-24 08:41:36] SMART: /dev/sg1 ST6000NM0115-1YZ110 ZAD1RC3H 2293 < 50521 48228 [FAIL] 616ms
    [2025-02-24 08:41:37] SMART: /dev/sg2 ST6000NM0115-1YZ110 ZAD3B4PF 2293 < 51637 49344 [FAIL] 654ms
    [2025-02-24 08:41:38] SMART: /dev/sg3 ST6000NM0115-1YZ110 ZAD3B0E1 2293 < 51633 49340 [FAIL] 662ms
    [2025-02-24 08:41:38] SMART: /dev/sg4 ST6000NM0115-1YZ110 ZAD3BYCL 2293 < 51638 49345 [FAIL] 654ms
    [2025-02-24 08:41:39] SMART: /dev/sg5 ST6000NM0115-1YZ110 ZAD3BXRH 2293 < 44517 42224 [FAIL] 667ms
    [2025-02-24 08:41:40] SMART: /dev/nvme0n1 Samsung SSD 960 EVO 500GB S3EUNX0JA01771Y [SKIP] 40ms

    Found a difference of over 1000 hours. Consider RMA.

    That's a cool 4.8 to 5.6 YEARS worth of extra power on hours across all drives. All drives manufactured in Sep 2019 so these were basically used from almost day one.

    At least they were cheap but definitely not pleased with this - waiting to hear back from East Digital but not putting a lot of stock in the warranty based on this.

    • c64 on 24/02/2025 - 12:33

      lol, that has to be the record so far.

      the FARM data should also show the "Logical Sectors Written" and "Logical Sectors Read". 1 logical sector = 512B. i'm guessing the totals are going to be mighty impressive. example FARM data

      • crossgun on 24/02/2025 - 13:18

        Ask and ye shall receive:

        sdb/sg1:
        FARM Log Page 2: Workload Statistics
        Total Number of Read Commands: 1198297733
        Total Number of Write Commands: 414453137
        Total Number of Random Read Commands: 297572693
        Total Number of Random Write Commands: 279334538
        Total Number Of Other Commands: 32589937
        Logical Sectors Written: 324560311226
        Logical Sectors Read: 401089507049

        sdc/sg2:
        FARM Log Page 2: Workload Statistics
        Total Number of Read Commands: 1437577509
        Total Number of Write Commands: 16237148934
        Total Number of Random Read Commands: 166055734
        Total Number of Random Write Commands: 1546629593
        Total Number Of Other Commands: 2427342
        Logical Sectors Written: 661114476386
        Logical Sectors Read: 284878905773

        sdd/sg3:
        FARM Log Page 2: Workload Statistics
        Total Number of Read Commands: 1368189531
        Total Number of Write Commands: 9995041122
        Total Number of Random Read Commands: 164138805
        Total Number of Random Write Commands: 1013659830
        Total Number Of Other Commands: 2453956
        Logical Sectors Written: 468641929148
        Logical Sectors Read: 297296450375

        sde/sg4:
        FARM Log Page 2: Workload Statistics
        Total Number of Read Commands: 854324894
        Total Number of Write Commands: 16995939562
        Total Number of Random Read Commands: 54301920
        Total Number of Random Write Commands: 10957509026
        Total Number Of Other Commands: 2441823
        Logical Sectors Written: 511242574444
        Logical Sectors Read: 163126688327

        sdf/sg5:
        FARM Log Page 2: Workload Statistics
        Total Number of Read Commands: 1337116228
        Total Number of Write Commands: 31123385094
        Total Number of Random Read Commands: 90688258
        Total Number of Random Write Commands: 21580505031
        Total Number Of Other Commands: 2311403
        Logical Sectors Written: 890355421963
        Logical Sectors Read: 181251941313

        If those figures are right the hard drive with the most written logical sectors (sdf/sg5) has written a grand total of just under 456 TB in its life (ouch)

        • mrhugo on 24/02/2025 - 14:09

          ouch ouch ouch….those drives are on borrowed time.

          You are lucky in a way that those are 6TB's, maybe get a few 18TB newish drive and see if you can return your 6's.

          • crossgun on 24/02/2025 - 14:17

            @mrhugo: Fortunately East Digital actually replied to my message this morning on eBay just around midday today - offered $20 refund per drive or straight return for full refund (definitely picking the latter)

            Might take a stab at the higher capacity Seagate factory recertified drives they've listed since they seem like they aren't caught up in this mess.

            • c64 on 24/02/2025 - 15:21

              @crossgun: better pick a capacity with a recent DOM. the recertified drives here are 5 years old (i presume with 4-5 years use)

  • 2025 on 25/02/2025 - 20:35

    This needs to be getting more exposure, a few ED deals were posted, and those that expressed suspicion towards the "new" status of the drives received comments like

    it's quite unlikely helium drives from both Seagate and WD can can have their SMART data reset by a third party. Their FW are encrypted

    and when someone else questions a high DOA rate

    How do you know the delivery person for that one user didn't drop the package or toss it into the delivery van

    We have people questioning why they were so cheap, with other commenters saying

    they're OEM drives, so they're purchased in bulk at a significant discount and the warranty is with the OEM and not Seagate themselves. In this case the warranty will be with the store

    and others saying

    I also emailed East Digital and they replied that the drives are brand new indeed

    Obviously for a great number of "new” drives these suspicions were spot on, and all we can do is hope that the ED sympathizers stop making stuff up to justify the drives.

    I'd have likely still bought them if they were honest being they are half the local price but not sure I'd like to encourage the behaviour.

    ED’s behaviour is deceitful and more than likely illegal and you’ve some great work exposing it. However it’s refreshing to see that when they were caught out, they’ve owned the problem.

    • eug on 25/02/2025 - 22:25
      -1

      ED’s behaviour is deceitful and more than likely illegal and you’ve some great work exposing it.

      It is also possible that ED purchased them from a supplier who did the resetting and sold them as brand new so they themselves were scammed. That would explain how all those other retailers around the world got caught up in it too.

      • 2025 on 26/02/2025 - 00:01

        Because it’s relatively easy to reset the counters, it’s also possible that ED did it themselves. That would explain how so many companies were getting away with it for so long.

        and all we can do is hope that the ED sympathizers stop making stuff up to justify the drives.

        You might have missed my point, we have had lots of people making up stories to fit the facts about these drives on the posts. Making up theories and stories that turned out to be BS. And the theories continue?!? Do I have to hope harder?

        I know who I quoted above, and the only solid facts that we have right now are that ED sold old drives as new.

        • eug on 26/02/2025 - 00:07

          Making up theories and stories that turned out to be BS.

          I know who I quoted above, and the only solid facts that we have right now are that ED sold old drives as new.

          Yes, but you're also making up an accusation with no evidence. We don't know if ED got screwed or did the screwing.

          • 2025 on 26/02/2025 - 00:09
            -3

            @eug: I’m not doing the accusations, it’s OP that is. Apparently ED sold old drives as new, that is all. Are you affiliated with ED?

            Are ED proactively reaching out to their customers that have purchased drives from them about this?

            • eug on 26/02/2025 - 00:17

              @2025:

              I’m not doing the accusations, it’s OP that is.

              OP deleted their comment so I didn't read it. I was referring to the line where you accused ED of being deceitful and more than likely illegal.

              Are you affiliated with ED?

              No.

              • 2025 on 26/02/2025 - 00:22
                -3

                @eug:

                deceive
                verb
                1: to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid

                Did they not do that when they sold it as new? When they told people they were new?

                As to whether it was intentional or not that’s anyone’s guess.

                More than likely illegal

                See how I qualified that? That it’s very probable, but not absolute? “More than likely” conveys a different meaning than “definitely”

                • eug on 26/02/2025 - 00:32

                  @2025: You might have missed my point.

                  As I said in my first post, they might not have known they were selling reset drives.

                  Yes, they did sell it. But if they didn't know it was reset, they weren't being deceitful. We don't know if ED knew they were reset.

                  Remember that all this started after a German tech site started investigating these drives sold by German computer stores who were not aware the drives were reset.

                  Here are comments by the stores and how they're handling it.

                  e.g. "Alternate writes that they purchased the goods from established German suppliers with whom they have had a long-standing business relationship. They were not informed that the products were not new. Their suppliers also said they had no knowledge of this and sold the goods to Alternate as new."

                  Would you say Alternate was being "deceitful and more than likely illegal" when they sold the drives?

                  • 2025 on 26/02/2025 - 00:36

                    @eug: Yes, due diligence is something I expect from a retailer, I would not expect to be sold second hand goods from a store advertised as new. I have no relation to the wholesalers in those transactions, so whatever happens between the store and them is not really any of my concern. If I bought some new drives and they were used, I’d feel deceived and start reading the consumer law act.

                    So if Alternate didn’t know, and their supplier didn’t know, then who does? Sounds like plausible deniability to me.

                    • eug on 26/02/2025 - 00:45

                      @2025: I don't think it's realistic to expect retail stores to have the time or money to regularly investigate the supply chain for all their products across all their suppliers.

                      Anyway the entire point of my first post was to state that we don't actually know if ED were the ones being deceitful.

                      ED could very well be in the wrong here, but they could also be a victim as well. Unfortunately it's very easy for forums to throw accusations around with no evidence. That would be unfair if they were actually innocent.

                      • 2025 on 26/02/2025 - 01:04

                        @eug: ED were leading people to believe they were new. That is a fact.

                        I’ve personally rejected Exos drives from an Onshore B2B about 8 months ago and they had the same excuse about not knowing. No more purchases have been made there.

                        Sure we don’t know if ED knew. But to me that’s besides the point. The only product category that their store sells is drives, and you’d think that would make them somewhat of an expert on drives.

                        Even if they were tricked, how come they couldn’t detect it, being the drive specialist that they are. So even if they did not know, personally I’d have grave concerns about them not picking it up, because among other things, they know how many are DOA, how many die within a few months etc.

                        The smartmontools release that introduced reading these metrics was published over 18 months ago.

                        • eug on 26/02/2025 - 01:14

                          @2025:

                          Sure we don’t know if ED knew.

                          That's all I was saying.

                          It's too easy to throw out accusations that can damage a business with no proof.

                          ED may have been "deceitful and more than likely illegal".

                          Or not.

                          • 2025 on 26/02/2025 - 01:27
                            -4

                            @eug: If they didn’t know they are demonstrably incompetent as a drive dealer.

                            It's too easy to throw out accusations that can damage a business with no proof.

                            Indeed, but the one thing that would damage them more than a forum comment is selling used drives as new

                            They’ve been caught red handed, I guess we will wait and see what their excuses are.

                            To me they either would have known, or should have known, either way - the sense of being deceived when purchasing applies to both scenarios.

  • mmd on 26/02/2025 - 01:21

    I guess it sounds too good to be true
    Wonder if neology is affected.

    • liuzhen on 27/02/2025 - 14:00

      I just ordered one (https://neology.com.au/products/st18000nm000j?variant=475538…) for $529.

      Fails the FARM test :(

      === Checking Drive: /dev/sdb ===
      Device Model: ST18000NM000J
      SMART: 0
      FARM: 18128
      RESULT: FAIL

      • c64 on 27/02/2025 - 14:45

        what is the date of manufacture? a brand new 18TB SATA WD Ultrastar HC550 with full manufacturer's warranty is $649 at umart

        • liuzhen on 27/02/2025 - 14:57

          2021.. we live and learn I guess. I have emailed support

          • liuzhen on 27/02/2025 - 17:14

            @liuzhen: Have spoken with support - said they have a new supplier since not much stock, given this result they have taken the model off their site for now so they can do their own testing.

            Very helpful - offered a return with refund, exchange for another drive, or work out another price given it has prior usage.

            I have the drive doing some tests in my test system now, but seems like they were genuinely unaware and happy to make things right.

            • 2025 on 27/02/2025 - 18:58

              @liuzhen: Isn’t it just a bit suspicious that they took your word for it? Surely they’d want it back to do their own testing? Make sure that you didn’t fake the results? Assuming they truly didn’t know about this beforehand. Similar behaviour to ED.

              Why would they let you keep it and negotiate the price if they themselves had been ripped off? Wouldn’t they want it back to send back to the “supplier” for a credit?

              • 2025 on 27/02/2025 - 20:58

                @2025: To be clear liuzhen these are rhetorical questions I find myself asking of them, after reading updates like yours.

                To be fair it looks like ED are asking for the drives back, if that is to prevent everyone filing a false claim or to actually seek a remedy with their supplier we may never know.

                I had a similar thing happen when I received a shipment of “new” Exos about 8 months ago. Thought I’d give a smaller Aussie B2B a go.

                The ESD bags weren’t right and they had a sticker where it shouldn’t be. This prompted me to contact Seagate, and they failed warranty validation.

                Kinda glad I had a chance to check, if it was the new guy receiving them he’d happily dish them out, after all, how’s he going know to what stickers and bags they usually come with.

                I called the vendor and of course they acted surprised, blamed their supplier, but offered a discount for me to keep them. Straight away I suspected that they were in on it, because if I were to call someone like Ingram or DD and complain that they sold me dodgy stuff, they would not offer a discount after a complaint like that lol.

                I strongly believe that this is only so prevalent now because the article shows how to read the data with smartctl, and smartctl has been able to do it for 18 months.

                Many businesses appear to have been busted “winding back the odometer” so to speak, and are all blaming someone else up the chain. At the end of the day, if I buy a car from a dealer, and its odometer has been interfered with, it’s on the dealer and no one else.

              • vorsprung on 27/02/2025 - 21:46

                @2025: They might have removed it from one store, but surely this is the same (sold by Neology) https://m.catch.com.au/product/seagate-exos-x18-18tb-st18000…

                Edit: sorry meant to reply to the other poster, can’t figure out how fix it now too hard.

  • davidson on 01/03/2025 - 14:05

    We purchased around 50 Recertified Seagate EXOS 18TB.
    All passed FARM checks, all purchased from East Digital around 12 months ago, all came with DOM of around 2023, some from 2021.

  • Zuelly on 03/03/2025 - 01:59

    Adding to the pile

    === Checking Drive: /dev/sda ===
    Device Model: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    SMART: 4223
    FARM: 22283
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking Drive: /dev/sda ===
    Device Model: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    SMART: 4257
    FARM: 22317
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking Drive: /dev/sda ===
    Device Model: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    SMART: 4255
    FARM: 22317
    RESULT: FAIL

  • Rage Roze on 03/03/2025 - 16:23

    Where should we shop now for reasonable priced 16/18tb NAS drives

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