Why would a factory sealed Seagate IronWolf HD have over 1700 hours on it? And how was it unformatted?

[MacUserSince93]

Hi everyone...

I bought a Seagate IronWolf HD on eBay two years ago. The seller said it was new, unopened. It was factory sealed. I decided to sell it last month. The buyer said it had over 1700 hours on it. I refunded his money. He sent it back. I tested it. It was unformatted! I had to format it to test it myself. It does have over 1700 hours on it! How is any of that possible???

I appreciate any facts or insights you might have. Thank You.

8TB Seagate IronWolf NAS 7200 rpm SATA 6Gb/s 3.5" 256MB Cache Internal RAID HDD ST8000VN0022

 

[tsialex]

The buyer said it had over 1700 hours on it.

Can't explain that, most HDDs I ever bought new has less than 2 or 3 hours, just the time for the factory to test it.

It was unformatted! I had to format it to test it myself. It does have over 1700 hours on it! How is any of that possible???

From memory, there are at least five different ways to make an already used hard drive unformatted again:

• SATA secure erase low level command
• sudo gpt destroy diskXX
• diskutil zerodisk diskXX
• diskutil ramdomdisk diskXX
• diskutil secureerase Y diskXX

 

[AlixSPQR]

Hi everyone...

I bought a Seagate IronWolf HD on eBay two years ago. The seller said it was new, unopened. It was factory sealed. I decided to sell it last month. The buyer said it had over 1700 hours on it. I refunded his money. He sent it back. I tested it. It was unformatted! I had to format it to test it myself. It does have over 1700 hours on it! How is any of that possible???

I appreciate any facts or insights you might have. Thank You.

8TB Seagate IronWolf NAS 7200 rpm SATA 6Gb/s 3.5" 256MB Cache Internal RAID HDD ST8000VN0022

The only reasonable explanation is that it wasn't new when you bought it, and that someone had tampered with the factory seal.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

This is the tech version of the old used car trick of rolling back the odometer so it looks like the car has less miles on it than it actually does. Those with more than a few hours likely have return & refurbished if not outright used drives. If purchased as "new," buyer can make a case of fraud and probably get a return/refund from a reputable seller.

Else, punish the "tough luck, sucker" seller by never buying anything from them again and encouraging anyone who will listen to also avoid them too. Money (is the only thing that) talks to sellers.

In shopping around, unusually good pricing usually has some kind of hook in it like this. If great pricing is all around $250 but you find this ONE place offering it for $175, there's almost certainly something up with the outlier. Buyer beware... especially of no-name sellers with fantastic bargains. You know the classic saying: "If something looks too good to be true..."

 

[Fishrrman]

Moral:
DO NOT BUY hard drives from non-reliable sources.

 

[xraydoc]

Did the buyer send you back the same drive you sent him (matching serial numbers)?

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Moral: NEW SSDs/HDDs should be bought from authorized dealers, not from any seller on ebay or online shops.

Faked SSDs are flooding our local market now. SSD with very few running hours, well-known branded SSDs are just relabeled ones. etc...