Hard Drives from Amazon and Warranty

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
Joined
Oct 29, 2000
Messages
38,858
Has anyone else had this problem?

I've been on a year long mission to replace all the hard drives in my storage server. Since I ahve twelve drives in the server, and these things are pricy, rather than replace them all at once, I decided to gradually swap them out one by one, once a month. This has the added benefit of spreading the drives out over multiple lots, in case there is a bad batch somewhere along the way.

So, once a month I order a larger drive and swap out and resilver an existing one in my server.

Silly me, I assumed that what I was buying on Amazon was going to be legit, but it turns out Amazon apparently pools their inventory oof the same SKU's and it results in some undesirable outcomes. I should have checked the serial number on Seagate's website every time I ordered, but I didn't think of it at the time.

Now, going back and checking the warranty status of the 8 drives I have replaced to date (I am just ordering my September drive now) two of the 8 drives came back with non-standard warranty messages.

- The drive from February came back as "Please contact the place of purchase".
Apparently this was an OEM drive, that the seller assumes the warranty responsibility for. it makes me a little uneasy, as who knows if this random Amazon marketplace seller will be around in 2027 to honor my 5 year warranty, but I contacted them, and at least I ahve it in writing that they will honor it.

- The drive from July came back as "Regional Restrictions May Apply".
The response I got from that seller is that some of the drives they sell come from other regions, but if Seagate rejects the warranty claim they will honor it.

How do you guys handle stuff like this?

At this point I guess I am stuck with the two drives mentioned above, and just have to hope for the best if they ever go bad, but my inclination going forward is to read the serial number off the label on the box the next one comes in, and if it is not listed as covered on Seagates website, to return the drive to Amazon within th ereturn window. I wish I had done this all along :(

It's kind of shitty that I have to do this though. All the drives, whether they have covered warranty directly from Seagate, or are out of region or OEM drives are listed on the same store page on Amazon. There is no way of knowing which you are getting until it arrives and you can run the serial number.

Let this message serve as a warning to others, and a request for input from yet others on the best way to get assured vendor covered drives.
 
Yeah I've heard of the oem mixup before. Probably SOL.

I've had decent luck with refurbished data center drives though.
 
I buy used decom data center SAS drives for cheap and always have cold spares instead of drives with warranty. Of course this is with a proper file system using parity protection so you can replace a failed drive.
 
kydsid said:
I buy used decom data center SAS drives for cheap and always have cold spares instead of drives with warranty. Of course this is with a proper file system using parity protection so you can replace a failed drive.
Click to expand...

Oh, I have both parity as well as offsite backups.

In my case I have a ZFS set up with two 6 drive RAIDz2 zvols, so drives can easily be swapped.

I always thought used drives were more trouble than they were worth though.
 
Last edited:
Zarathustra[H] said:
I always thought used drives were more trouble than they were worth though.
Click to expand...

8TB are currently decoming. Last purchase I made was for $50 per drive. I mean sure I've bought when in a rush a drive here and there from a new ebay seller I didn't do my due diligence on and then have the drive fail within a few months. But $50 for 8TB, worth it to me, especially as these are a recommended source at that price on a group buy. Even if they werent I think they would be around $80 per drive.
 
Last edited:
Seagate should honor the warranty as long as you provide the invoice from Amazon. They are a authorized dealer of them.
 
I've purchased my storage spinners from Amazon. So far 1 failed out of 6 and the seller honored the warranty and replaced it with a new drive. I've been lucky thus far.
 
kydsid said:
8TB are currently decoming. Last purchase I made was for $50 per drive. I mean sure I've bought when in a rush a drive here and there from a new ebay seller I didn't do my due diligence on and then have the drive fail within a few months. But $50 for 8TB, worth it to me, especially as these are a recommended source at that price on a group buy. Even if they werent I think they would be around $80 per drive.
Click to expand...

I'm curious, when you get them, how many power on hours do they usually have?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm curious, when you get them, how many power on hours do they usually have?
Click to expand...


Had to go look last one up, I don't even check any more. 44, 265 hours with 173 power cycles on it right now in my rig. This is on a HGST with a MTBF of 2M
 
Or there are plenty of other, more reputable sellers than Amazon out there.

I keep reading where people have been screwed in so many different ways by Amazon or likely one of their many resellers.
 
I handle it by not buying from marketplace sellers, except awd (when I don't care), the manufacturer's (verified) store (when the price is right), and some specialist stores (when I have had good experiences with them in the past).
 
philb2 said:
Or there are plenty of other, more reputable sellers than Amazon out there.

I keep reading where people have been screwed in so many different ways by Amazon or likely one of their many resellers.
Click to expand...

It used to be that Amazon was the only safe place to buy hard drives, everyone else (especially Newegg) were packing them so poorly that they wete often damaged when you got them.

Granted this has been a while, but old habits die hard.
 
Funny. I did the exactly same thing. The only difference is I bought a new drive in every two months. And I bought WD drives. WD sells them direct, same price as Amazon, no problems with warranty of course if you buy direct. Took the old smaller drives and made myself a backup storage server.
 
Segfault said:
WD sells them direct, same price as Amazon,
Click to expand...
When I go to the WD store and click on something I was interested in, it takes me to a page where the item is shipped and sold by amazon. Is anything shipped and sold by WD?
 
I don't know now, I bought my last drive a few months ago and then it was sold and shipped directly. I'm pretty sure if you register your Amazon drive with WD then the warranty starts from day you bought it. Earlier I had a case with WD when they refused warranty of some Amazon seller sold drive, they considered the warranty started from day of manufacturing.

Edit: Watch out for SMR drives, WD Red. They sell them as NAS drives, yet SMR is not useful with ZFS. WD Red Plus is CMR.
 
Last edited:
I no longer buy mech HDDs from Amazon. The last one they sent (4TB IronWolf) was in a box rattling around with just a A4 sheet of bubble-wrap round it. Suffice to say it didn't work and was returned.
 
I haven't bought a bare drive in ages, but it used to be they came in neat retail packages. Are they all sold in bulk now, so resellers like Amazon have to package it themselves (which they don't know how to do)?
 
Segfault said:
I don't know now, I bought my last drive a few months ago and then it was sold and shipped directly. I'm pretty sure if you register your Amazon drive with WD then the warranty starts from day you bought it. Earlier I had a case with WD when they refused warranty of some Amazon seller sold drive, they considered the warranty started from day of manufacturing.

Edit: Watch out for SMR drives, WD Red. They sell them as NAS drives, yet SMR is not useful with ZFS. WD Red Plus is CMR.
Click to expand...

SMR is fine for certain purposes.

I wouldn't use them for near-line NAS systems, but for a remote backup, that only ever sees writes at WAN speeds, I wouldn't hesitate to use them.
 
There are reports SMR drives failing during ZFS resilvering. I'm not saying SMR does not have any use. Just advertising them as NAS drives is misleading, ZFS may be used in NAS.
 
Segfault said:
There are reports SMR drives failing during ZFS resilvering. I'm not saying SMR does not have any use. Just advertising them as NAS drives is misleading, ZFS may be used in NAS.
Click to expand...
I hadn't heard that, just that people were disappointed that they had slow writes.
 
Here's my story. One drive fell out from zpool, WD Red. I bought a replacement, a brand new WD Red. Plugged it in, started resilvering. Next morning I saw it was aborted by zpool. Couldn't figure out why, everything did seem fine otherwise. Although I noticed idle3ctl could not manage this drive. Started resilvering again, this time it finished and zpool accepted the drive. A few months later I saw SMR/CMR discussion in Gentoo forums. I realized this was the problem with my drive. I learned former Red CMR drives are now called Red Plus. I contacted WD and asked if they can replace my Red drive [with Plus] because it was not a replacement for Red drive! They refused, but provided me with a link to a class action lawsuit. I thought registering there won't hurt. I was forgotten this until there was a check in mail from WD, $22 for my trouble ... class action lawsuits are for lawyers, not for victims. Now I have this SMR drive on shelf, used for about three months. And 22 bucks. Happy me.
 
Segfault said:
class action lawsuits are for lawyers, not for victims. Now I have this SMR drive on shelf, used for about three months. And 22 bucks. Happy me.
Click to expand...

Well, the lawyers just get their pay as usual. it takes a lot of man hours both in layer and in legal aid time to pursue a case like this. It's not like they just get windfalls in millions. This is payment for the work they put into the case, and is inline with typical pay per hour for their field.

There is a clear recognition that class actions don't make "victims" whole, but what they DO do is make sure there are consequences for the company doing the shady shit, which hopefully acts as a disincentive towards other companies for doing similar things.

It sucks for the little guy, but it helps make the market a better place. At least in theory.
 
I would buy the drives from somewhere else such as B&H, Micro Center, Best Buy...

If you're set on Amazon, then at least avoid the marketplace unless the seller is the manufacturer.
 
ElementDave said:
I would buy the drives from somewhere else such as B&H, Micro Center, Best Buy...

If you're set on Amazon, then at least avoid the marketplace unless the seller is the manufacturer.
Click to expand...

Amazon used to be considered the only safe place to ship harddrives from, due to the others messing up packaging. I guess that isn't the case anymore.
The problem with Amazon appears to be that they pool inventory of the same SKU, so it might not even matter if you avoid the "market place". it is so integrated at this point that it is almost impossible to tell where what you buy is actually coming from.

So, yeah, probably best to avoid Amazon going forward.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Amazon used to be considered the only safe place to ship harddrives from, due to the others messing up packaging. I guess that isn't the case anymore.
The problem with Amazon appears to be that they pool inventory of the same SKU, so it might not even matter if you avoid the "market place". it is so integrated at this point that it is almost impossible to tell where what you buy is actually coming from.

So, yeah, probably best to avoid Amazon going forward.
Click to expand...
Yup, there's been scams before where sellers list their counterfeit products under a similar name, it gets pooled, then they pull "their" stock back out, getting mostly real goods back.

I'd source it but it was a while back when I heard about this.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
There is a clear recognition that class actions don't make "victims" whole, but what they DO do is make sure there are consequences for the company doing the shady shit, which hopefully acts as a disincentive towards other companies for doing similar things.

It sucks for the little guy, but it helps make the market a better place. At least in theory.
Click to expand...
Right. But it also created a whole new "industry". We had one of these in our property, a lawyer and a disabled man in wheelchair. Checking whether or equipment complies with disability act. They found some tables where one inch taller than allowed by law. This should be the decision of business owner whether they are willing to serve all customers or not. Those who find better service elsewhere will do it and the business will suffer. There is no need for such laws and such lawyers to roam and trying to find a business to sue. The money they are getting will come from pockets of other customers as the price of service has to go up. This is what everybody tends to forget, in the end the money comes from our pockets.
And not to mention those "cancer" lawsuits (like Roundup). Regardless whether the product is dangerous for customer or not the best option for defendant is always to settle. Proving my product is safe in court costs much more. These swindling lawyers know it and they build their case to stay well below the threshold, making sure the victim settles. And in the end of payment chain is the end customer who is buying this product.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Amazon used to be considered the only safe place to ship harddrives from, due to the others messing up packaging. I guess that isn't the case anymore.
Click to expand...
Finding companies that do proper HDD packaging has always been a major PITA for me. I used to order all my HDDs from a single retailer just for that reason, but unfortunately they're no longer in business. Not sure which retailer I'd choose now, as it's been a while since I've bought new HDDs.
Zarathustra[H] said:
The problem with Amazon appears to be that they pool inventory of the same SKU, so it might not even matter if you avoid the "market place". it is so integrated at this point that it is almost impossible to tell where what you buy is actually coming from.
Click to expand...
Yep. If you search the web or even this forum with terms that include "Amazon" and "commingling", you'll find a lot of information on the topic.
 
ElementDave said:
Finding companies that do proper HDD packaging has always been a major PITA for me. I used to order all my HDDs from a single retailer just for that reason, but unfortunately they're no longer in business. Not sure which retailer I'd choose now, as it's been a while since I've bought new HDDs.

Yep. If you search the web or even this forum with terms that include "Amazon" and "commingling", you'll find a lot of information on the topic.
Click to expand...
Like I said in the past, I just don't buy drives from Amazon any longer. Or much of anything else, if I can get the same item elsewhere. Amazon may have been a benefit for consumers once, but those days are long over. Now it's just another over-greedy mega-company.
 
philb2 said:
Like I said in the past, I just don't buy drives from Amazon any longer. Or much of anything else, if I can get the same item elsewhere. Amazon may have been a benefit for consumers once, but those days are long over. Now it's just another over-greedy mega-company.
Click to expand...
Yep. Between inventory comingling, poor customer service when a real issue happens, and poor packaging nowadays, I avoid Amazon for most things like the plague. I'll likely cancel my prime membership for the first time since it launched, this coming year.
 
GoldenTiger said:
Yep. Between inventory comingling, poor customer service when a real issue happens, and poor packaging nowadays, I avoid Amazon for most things like the plague. I'll likely cancel my prime membership for the first time since it launched, this coming year.
Click to expand...
To build on my earlier post, I am even willing to buy from Newegg in preference to Amazon. :eek:

That's how little I think of Amazon. :mad:
 
rhkcommander959 said:
A crap ton, like 4 power cycles and hundreds of thousands of hours. But the drives are rated for much more than that, usually 2 million hours.
Click to expand...

Thank you for bringing this to my attention.

I did not know there was a market for old drives.

I'm probably not going to be buying any any time soon, but I am in the process of decomming 12 10TB Seagate Enterprise/Exos drives (from right about the time they change the name to Exos, some are pre, some are post name change, but all are the same hardware) They all have about 35k-40k hours on them.

I'd move them to my backup server, but I think I want slower, less power hungry 5400rpm drives for that.

I was just going to keep them around as I didn't think they had resale value, but based on this I might actually try selling them. Selling them onesie twosie is not going to make sense. Too much work for too little gain, but if I can find someone who wants the bunch and makes a decent offer, I'll ship or do a local transaction.

I'm going to have to work on replacements for the backup server next. I have 16 4TB WD reds in that thing, and they are coming up on some SERIOUS hours. I think they are coming up on 70k hours now.

Surprisingly, while I had a few failures I RMA'd in the first 2-4 years, for the last 5 years they have been absolutely bulletproof. They just keep on humming. I feel like I should knock on wood now or something...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top