Thanks! I just checked an 10TB Ironwolf bought to a German seller through Amazon.fr less than two months ago: Its warranty expires in a few days... :(
Which isn't necessarily bad... HDDs have a much longer lifespan than SSDs. I expect my used HDDs to last at least 5years in my RAID5 setup.
It's fraud.
They are clearly marked in the description, but this is often awkwardly-conveniently after the truncation point for search results listings, so you need to be vigilant.
In contrast, the article is about used devices sold as new, and with SMART counters reset.
That absolutely smells like fraud -- though to be fair, I can concoct at plausible sequence of errors and omissions that arrives at the same result.
I expect that someone with subpoena power will need to take it from here.
I will say I bought two HDDs from Amazon just in November, and they were new. I just validated that as well. I purchased directly from Seagate on Amazon.
Unless the seller has opted out of Amazon's inventory commingling, their products got binned with everyone else claiming to sell the same product and you got one at random.
If Seagate sends a box of Seagate Exos 16TB drives in, Amazon puts them in bin 1234.
If Joe's Computer Shop sends their new, authentic Seagate Exos 16TB drives in, they get put in bin 1234.
If Sam the Scammer sends in a couple of "new Seagate Exos 16TB" drives in that are really just reflashed 80GB drives from the 90s, they get put in bin 1234.
You order a Seagate Exos 16TB... you get one from bin 1234.
The only way to avoid this is to contact the seller beforehand and see if they've opted out of the commingling. But at that point... very likely easier to just buy elsewhere.
I know high volume customers who have 99.5% success with Amazon orders, and others who would say "pretty much everything I buy is used or fake".
First assumption is that it boils down to differences in product types. Certainly some types attract more seller fraud. But I wonder if there's also a region or distribution center variability, like the East Cupcake Regional warehouse does a crappy job of inspecting returns. Or the delivery manager in West Cupcake hires crappy drivers.
Amazon must do this analysis internally. I'd love to understand it better.
I basically avoid name brand fungibles. Find any two hard drives and they look and function the same, which means I’m not buying that on Amazon.
But I see people complaining about counterfeit products but they buy batteries and hard drives from Amazon and I would never.
But I am confused about another part.
Why would you prefer (clearly marked) "refurbished" HDDs for 20% less than new, if you expect them to last 5 years? If a new HDD would last 6+ years, you're better off buying new, right?
I guess I can see electing to buy into the lower part of the bathtub curve, but I have a difficult time trusting that "refurb" doesn't reset your timeline on the curve (e.g. by replacing the PCB outside the platter box).
Also as a reference point, the refurbished drives I've bought have been less than $10/TB, while new internal drives are $15/TB on a good day.
This assumes you know and can control where in the curve you're buying into.