Question Possible bad drive 12TB.

[pug_s]

Hey guys,

Recently I brought a refurbished Seagate Exos X16 12TB refurbished for $105 which I thought it is a good deal. I used acronis to copy the all my data over to this drive, started loading Far Cry 6 game on it and noticed that is takes very long to load till it was freezing and I have to reset. Rebooted the computer and started the game without issues. Loaded Crystaldiskinfo here and I was wondering if there are any issues and was wondering if I should ask the seller for an exchange or something. Thanks.

Crystaldiskinfo

 

[Aeacus]

refurbished for $105 which I thought it is a good deal

Since you bought used HDD, there is 0 expectation for it to work like brand new HDD. Nor has it any warranty.

Brand new Exos X16 12TB is 240 bucks. So, if you do not want any issues with HDD, buy a brand new one. Else-ways, be happy with the cheap and possibly defective HDD you bought.

Btw, i'm not rich enough to buy used hardware. So, i'll only buy brand new hardware.

 

[USAFRet]

Recently I brought a refurbished Seagate

Refurbished by whom?
Sold by whom?
What 'warranty' did it come with?

 

[fzabkar]

The SMART report is clean.

Perform a full surface scan with HDDScan or Victoria for Windows. These tools will identify "slow" sectors, ie those that require read retries.

 

[Grobe]

Crystaldiskinfo

Useful tip: When the Crystaldiskinfo main window is active, you can hit Ctrl+C that will copy the whole shcabang as plain text, as can be pasted directly to the forum - then put <code> tags to make it feasible to read it.

If all s.m.a.r.t. data doesn't reveal any obvious faults, you still can do a benchmark - that may reveal performance issues.

 

[pug_s]

Refurbished by whom?
Sold by whom?
What 'warranty' did it come with?

https://serverpartdeals.com/product...b-3-5-fastformat-manufacturer-recertified-hdd

It has a 2 year warranty from them. I used Acronis to copy my 8tb schucked smr seagate hard drive to this one without problems. I was kind of weary of buying of used drives too but some people swear by them but my first experience is not so great.

 

[fzabkar]

I'd like to know if this drive was always a 12TB model. If it originally had a higher capacity, then one or more heads would have been switched off. This in turn would mean that there is some concern in regard to the bad heads or platters, and whether they may affect the drive's reliability. To this end you could weigh the drive and compare it against Seagate's published specs.

Is the date on the label the original date of manufacture, or is it the date of refurbishment?

 

[Aeacus]

I was kind of weary of buying of used drives too but some people swear by them but my first experience is not so great.

Those who are rich enough, sure, can swear by the used hardware. Since they have money to buy 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc used hardware as well, until they get lucky enough that eventually, their hardware works almost as brand new. And/or have no issues when they get faulty hardware, whereby they happily use the "so-so" working stuff, or don't mind getting burned (money wise).

Like i said above, i'm not that rich.

E.g your HDD saga;
1st 100 bucks to get iffy drive.
2nd 100 bucks to get 2nd, possibly iffy drive as well? Or go with brand new one at 240 bucks.

So. if you go with brand new drive 2nd time around, in total, you've spent 340 bucks, 100 more than if you would've gone with brand new drive off the bat.
I'd rather spend the initial 100 bucks on something nice, than for the headache, wasted time, effort and money, to straighten the HDD saga.

Btw, brand new drive comes with 5 years of warranty.

Is the date on the label the original date of manufacture, or is it the date of refurbishment?

The label on refurbished drive is replaced.

Refurb drive from OP's linked store:

Brand new drive:

With label change, and like you said, it's no telling what size the original drive was. It very well could've been 14/16 TB drive, nerfed down to 12TB drive.

 

[Viking2121]

I got the same drive, I also bought as refurbished on Newegg, Use it for my media server, but yeah it not slow by any means, its as fast as most other drives, I would get your data off it if sensitive and ask for replacement, You do take a chance on refurbished anything, but is it worth it, depends on the situation and use case in my opinion, but always keep a receipt and just sorta expect these things to sometimes happen, name of the game.

Good Luck!

 

[pug_s]

I got the same drive, I also bought as refurbished on Newegg, Use it for my media server, but yeah it not slow by any means, its as fast as most other drives, I would get your data off it if sensitive and ask for replacement, You do take a chance on refurbished anything, but is it worth it, depends on the situation and use case in my opinion, but always keep a receipt and just sorta expect these things to sometimes happen, name of the game.

Good Luck!

My Schucked 8tb smr drives has some read errors too and Crystaldiskinfo was giving a warning that my old 8tb drive thus the reason why I brought this current 12tb drive. As for data, I mostly store games and other non important files there. I have a synology nas with raid which I do store a backup of my important files.

I am well aware of the risks of buying a used drive but the price is just too good to ignore.

 

[punkncat]

I have had exceptional luck over the years with refurbished or recertified drives...and just plain USED drives. In particular, on the last note, I was paying pennies on the dollar if at all for used SSD and HDD. I typically use them for non critical storage and often within builds of which the owner didn't want to spend much.

The important aspect to note about HDD is that they are so susceptible to damage from shock. This drive might have been fine until it was mailed to you. I would attempt to delete the information you have on and see if they will do an exchange for the same model. That price isn't bad for that size storage. That is the ballpark price of a low RPM 8TB right now from Seagate or WD.

Another note: If it is cold there make sure to let this drive sit until it is at ambient temps before trying to install and use it.