Poor packaging of new HDD

[SNB_UK]

Yep - very sad and a waste of a decent HD.

I haven't ordered the replacement yet - there seems to be a shortage and prices have risen :-(
Amazon.co.uk are selling them for 200GBP, about 310USD.

 

[sfx2000]

Which drive model? - most of the one's I've seen for Seagate 8TB are the Archive version, which is SMR...

 

[SNB_UK]

ST8000AS0002
Yes, it's the shingled magnetic recording HD. Up to the point it failed, I was writing to it sequentially sustained at about 160MB/S (from a SSD). With a combined R/W of over 400MB/S. It was for my music collection, photos & videos, so perfect for that task, if it wasn't DOA.

 

[TonyH]

Guys - I never mentioned Amazon. I got the HD from a UK aggregator/discounter.
Any how, here's the packaging it came in.


uploading images

There is absolutely minimal protection, fine for a paperback, not platters of spinning rust capable of holding 8000GB ....

Looks like rattle city, LOL! Obviously whoever packed it does not know a thing about HDD. I am lucky,
I can go pick up any thing I need at very good price. Just 10 mins. drive away. Name of the place is
Memory Express. Huge warehouse full of stuffs even laptops, HDTVs, etc.

 

[TonyH]

ST8000AS0002
Yes, it's the shingled magnetic recording HD. Up to the point it failed, I was writing to it sequentially sustained at about 160MB/S (from a SSD). With a combined R/W of over 400MB/S. It was for my music collection, photos & videos, so perfect for that task, if it wasn't DOA.

I bet it was retrying a lot copying the files which took so long. Smooth head movement sounding like tick-tick-tick-tick vs. ticka-di-di-ticka-di-di. Indicator light blinking with rhythm vs. blinking wild.

 

[Blade Runner]

How do you test a hard drive before installing it? Sonic screw driver :-D?

No sonic screwdriver needed when every vendor has HDD diagnostic tools that can be downloaded from their website. Who doesn't have extra cables and power connectors?

 

[SNB_UK]

The alternative is the
HGST 0F23267 - Ultrastar He8 3.5 8TB.
but it retails for almost 700USD here.

 

[azazel1024]

No sonic screwdriver needed when every vendor has HDD diagnostic tools that can be downloaded from their website. Who doesn't have extra cables and power connectors?

I'd still kind of consider that installing it.

 

[stevech]

hard drive connection via a "dock"
I use this USB3 one for making backups so I can take-away the 2.5 or 3.5 in. drive...
http://plugable.com/products/usb3-sata-u3

There are dozens.

 

[sfx2000]

The alternative is the
HGST 0F23267 - Ultrastar He8 3.5 8TB.
but it retails for almost 700USD here.

That's a completely different breed of animal there - it's a great PMR drive - very fast, very quiet, targeted towards enterprise big data needs (hence the $700 price tag)...

 

[SNB_UK]

Well, I ordered another Seagate 8TB SMR drive from Amazon this time.
Still waiting for my refund fro the previous one (from a different retailer)

Arrived today.
<DOH> Similar packaging !

Well, I took photos and unpacked it.

Plugged it into my TS140 and fired up Seatools, passed SMART (so did the broken one) and the tests, which the previous failed on.
I'm copying the contents of my 2 x 4TB drives across to it, as I type.

Let's see what happens.

 

[coxhaus]

I am lucky as can buy my drives from Fry's in Austin. It is about 30 minutes away but scheduling being in Austin is not a problem. Dealing with someone local makes it easier to exchange. But now that I think about it, I don't think I have ever received a DOA drive from Fry's. I have probably bought between 15 and 20 hard drives. Only some are retail drives, most are OEM drives because they are cheaper. Of course at some point all drives die. It is just a matter of years.

 

[sfx2000]

I am lucky as can buy my drives from Fry's in Austin. It is about 30 minutes away but scheduling being in Austin is not a problem. Dealing with someone local makes it easier to exchange. But now that I think about it, I don't think I have ever received a DOA drive from Fry's. I have probably bought between 15 and 20 hard drives. Only some are retail drives, most are OEM drives because they are cheaper. Of course at some point all drives die. It is just a matter of years.

Picking up OEM drives from Fry's Electronics - always had good luck with them on a spot basis - never a bad drive with them, but challenge with them is short inventory cycles...

 

[sfx2000]

Arrived today.
<DOH> Similar packaging !

Well, I took photos and unpacked it.

Well, that's not good news

Wonder is this is a trend - SSD's are probably fine with this, but spinners/rust drives are a bit more sensitive to shipping issues...

I suppose if this is any good news - most of my RMA's for enterprise class drives in the data center - they're one step away from being shipped in a Pelican case - big boxes with conformal foam around them..

 

[stevech]

Of course at some point all drives die. It is just a matter of years.

"Bathtub curve" of failure rates.

 

[SNB_UK]

Closest Frys is probably 5000miles away ;-)

I checked it this morning and it sounded ok. What I'm wondering is if the life of the HD has been shortened by the poor packaging?

 

[stevech]

Closest Frys is probably 5000miles away ;-)

I checked it this morning and it sounded ok. What I'm wondering is if the life of the HD has been shortened by the poor packaging?

nah. I think drives with heads-parked are quite shock tolerant.

 

[sfx2000]

Closest Frys is probably 5000miles away ;-)

I checked it this morning and it sounded ok. What I'm wondering is if the life of the HD has been shortened by the poor packaging?

Normally if it passes an initial format and SMART checks, it should be ok - one can always to a full read/write on a spinner with no impact just to be sure...

There was another thread over in the NAS forum on how to bake/test a disk before putting it into production use...