Now you're thinking with forums.
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I should check mine when I get home, wouldn't surprise me if it was old... but probably out of the return date
That seems to be the major issue here, from what I've read most people don't notice until a few months after the purchase and by then it is too late to return it and the drive isn't under the manufactures warranty either. If you think about it this is kind of the perfect scam as the only way you'd know is if you dig deep into the smart logs which I doubt most people will do, especially on Windows as it doesn't have a builtin tool for smart logs (as far as I know).
Well I bought an HGST 2tb HDD May of last year (7400K model from this seller) and wasn't aware of this issue but noticed dodgy sellers at the very least. Hope mines doesn't kick the can. Shoud try Gnome Disk Utility when I reinstall Linux to verify.
More recent and reputable seller of the same drive going by reviews. Refurbished however.
Gnome Disk Utility won't tell you much as they wipe the SMART data. Only way you can check is if you run sudo smartctl -l selftest /dev/sdb and look at the LifeTime(hours) field as it logs when a smart test was run and can't be overwritten. Also if it shows nothing that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't old as you have to manually run the smart tests and I have drives with 2 years 7 months power on and nothing shows up here as I don't run the tests myself. You could also run testdisk and see if it has any deleted partitions on the disk but they may have wiped that as well.
In my experience in buying HDD's, it's always recommended to buy directly from the storefront (Amazon, Newegg, etc.) and not from a reseller (e.g. Joe Blow's Shop). You'll save yourself a lot of headache and RMA/returns in the process. Now if u happen to come across a price which happens to be a bargain by all means take advantage of it but u are assuming the risks that attach to it.
If you didn't pay the going price for a new HGST driver, you didn't get a new drive. You can pretty much guarantee that. So long as you pay close to the current price of a new driver, you're almost definitely fine.
guess you gota buy HDD's with their retail box intact.
Never buy drives from Amazon Jesus Christ you're better off fucking a hooker without protection. After seeing first hand how bad they fuck you working for a system integrator I will never ever buy another PC part from Amazon for as long as I live.
Amazon does not approve of your comment @SoulFallen.
Amazon is great if you buy straight from the source or from a reputable vendor.
I only ever buy from sellers i can return to without question.
newegg all day every day
Amazon should allow you to return it even if it is sold by a reseller as long as its within the return period, I sent the drive back pretty much straight away so I'm fine, It is only a problem for people who notice the drive is dodgy a couple of months after purchase.
Allways be aware if buy your stuff online on sites like Amazon and such,
who you buy from.
I think this is once more a lesson learned.
Maybe those drives might be refurbished?
This reminds me of the two 4TB drives I bought off Amazon just a few weeks back.. Both had a LARGE amount of bad sectors and it seemed to be growing as I tested them. I got a full refund and included print outs off the reports. Mine weren't dying due to old age like yours, but still. Two drives in a single shipment of two is awfully high.
They were sold as new drives and the SMART data was falsified to make them look new, only way to check the ages was to look at the selftest logs which can't be overwritten like the rest of the SMART data.
Hmm that sounds pretty bad indeed.
Also thanks for pointing out about how to check selftest logs.
That is pretty nice to know.
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It is very shady indeed, the worse part is that they are kind of giving HGST a bad name because all these drives die within 6 months and most people don't even know why, they just think HGST are making really bad hard drives which isn't the case. These drives are on the very edge of their usable life, mine had 3.6 years of power on time which is insane.
Interestingly this drive is by far the most used I've ever owned and none of it was due to my usage. The oldest drive in terms of power on that I own is 2 years and 7 months and this one trumps it by a long haul.
One of the reviews on there did say something about drives not lasting as long as they used too. Poor soul doesn't know he got played.
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used hard drives advertised as new runs rapid on amazon (no matter the brand,) literally wont buy any from them now
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