East Digital Exos "New" Not So New

macmanluke on 31/01/2025 - 00:00
Last edited 31/01/2025 - 09:25 by 1 other user

With a story about a heap of Seagate drives being sold as new but used in Germany

Came across this tool which can check farm hours on Seagate drives which can be compared with smart power on hours to see if drives are truly new

Well as kinda expected all 3 of my 16tb x16/x18 Exos drives currently in my server had 15,000-17,000 hours on them at the time the smart power on hours were wiped with manufacture dates being 2021/22 and the price I was always suspicious. Got 2 more still in the box which are no doubt the same.

I'd have likely still bought them if they were honest being they are half the local price but not sure I'd like to encourage the behaviour.

Computing Computer Component Hard Drive Seagate

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Comments

    • liuzhen on 27/02/2025 - 14:00
      +1

      I just ordered one (https://neology.com.au/products/st18000nm000j?variant=475538…) for $529.

      Fails the FARM test :(

      === Checking Drive: /dev/sdb ===
      Device Model: ST18000NM000J
      SMART: 0
      FARM: 18128
      RESULT: FAIL

      • c64 on 27/02/2025 - 14:45

        what is the date of manufacture? a brand new 18TB SATA WD Ultrastar HC550 with full manufacturer's warranty is $649 at umart

        • liuzhen on 27/02/2025 - 14:57

          2021.. we live and learn I guess. I have emailed support

          • liuzhen on 27/02/2025 - 17:14
            +1

            @liuzhen: Have spoken with support - said they have a new supplier since not much stock, given this result they have taken the model off their site for now so they can do their own testing.

            Very helpful - offered a return with refund, exchange for another drive, or work out another price given it has prior usage.

            I have the drive doing some tests in my test system now, but seems like they were genuinely unaware and happy to make things right.

            • 2025 on 27/02/2025 - 18:58
              -1

              @liuzhen: Isn’t it just a bit suspicious that they took your word for it? Surely they’d want it back to do their own testing? Make sure that you didn’t fake the results? Assuming they truly didn’t know about this beforehand. Similar behaviour to ED.

              Why would they let you keep it and negotiate the price if they themselves had been ripped off? Wouldn’t they want it back to send back to the “supplier” for a credit?

              • 2025 on 27/02/2025 - 20:58

                @2025: To be clear liuzhen these are rhetorical questions I find myself asking of them, after reading updates like yours.

                To be fair it looks like ED are asking for the drives back, if that is to prevent everyone filing a false claim or to actually seek a remedy with their supplier we may never know.

                I had a similar thing happen when I received a shipment of “new” Exos about 8 months ago. Thought I’d give a smaller Aussie B2B a go.

                The ESD bags weren’t right and they had a sticker where it shouldn’t be. This prompted me to contact Seagate, and they failed warranty validation.

                Kinda glad I had a chance to check, if it was the new guy receiving them he’d happily dish them out, after all, how’s he going know to what stickers and bags they usually come with.

                I called the vendor and of course they acted surprised, blamed their supplier, but offered a discount for me to keep them. Straight away I suspected that they were in on it, because if I were to call someone like Ingram or DD and complain that they sold me dodgy stuff, they would not offer a discount after a complaint like that lol.

                I strongly believe that this is only so prevalent now because the article shows how to read the data with smartctl, and smartctl has been able to do it for 18 months.

                Many businesses appear to have been busted “winding back the odometer” so to speak, and are all blaming someone else up the chain. At the end of the day, if I buy a car from a dealer, and its odometer has been interfered with, it’s on the dealer and no one else.

              • vorsprung on 27/02/2025 - 21:46

                @2025: They might have removed it from one store, but surely this is the same (sold by Neology) https://m.catch.com.au/product/seagate-exos-x18-18tb-st18000…

                Edit: sorry meant to reply to the other poster, can’t figure out how fix it now too hard.

  • davidson on 01/03/2025 - 14:05

    We purchased around 50 Recertified Seagate EXOS 18TB.
    All passed FARM checks, all purchased from East Digital around 12 months ago, all came with DOM of around 2023, some from 2021.

  • Zuelly on 03/03/2025 - 01:59

    Adding to the pile

    === Checking Drive: /dev/sda ===
    Device Model: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    SMART: 4223
    FARM: 22283
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking Drive: /dev/sda ===
    Device Model: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    SMART: 4257
    FARM: 22317
    RESULT: FAIL

    === Checking Drive: /dev/sda ===
    Device Model: ST16000NM001G-2KK103
    SMART: 4255
    FARM: 22317
    RESULT: FAIL

  • Rage Roze on 03/03/2025 - 16:23

    Where should we shop now for reasonable priced 16/18tb NAS drives

  • vorsprung on 10/03/2025 - 13:45
    +3

    The latest update in the saga (from a couple of days ago):

    The crooks have apparently managed to change a value that was previously considered a clear indicator of fraud: the number of hours of operation in the FARM values.

    https://www.heise.de/news/Festplatten-Betrug-Groessere-Platt…

    • c64 on 10/03/2025 - 14:04

      they have upped their game. the article suggests you can't even trust the sticker on the drives

      apparently ironwolf pros are also being targeted

  • Viospeed on 13/03/2025 - 14:28
    +1

    Does anyone know if you can check the real hours used when in TrueNAS?

    • 4kbargain on 13/03/2025 - 21:35
      +1

      Go to the github page mentioned in the op post. Run the docker container command from the truenas shell. There is an example command in github page.

  • seriousquokka on 13/03/2025 - 14:45
    +2

    I was always sceptical as there’s just no good reason for NEW drives manufactured in 21/22 still being left unsold. Any of that stock would have been moved long time ago, with only little discount.

  • B-Moose on 13/03/2025 - 21:28
    -1

    Thanks for this post. I checked my Exos 16TB drive purchased from Neology (boxing day sale 2023 https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/822354), and it failed so is one of the fraudulent erased drives. It had over 2 years of use before I got it.

    I've emailed them seeking a resolution, would prefer a replacement.

  • ctemby on 13/03/2025 - 23:17

    More to add to the list. Purchased multiple "Brand New" Exos drives, half of them failed FARM checks with approximately 20,000 hours (2.3 years) of power on use for each drive.

    • ctemby on 14/03/2025 - 13:48

      Response from ED:
      "We have recently received similar feedback and we will also verify the situation with the supplier.
      At the same time, we will stop selling the product and make a decision after confirmation.
      Before the problem is resolved, in order to ensure your rights,
      You can choose to keep or return the hard drive.
      If you keep it, we will apply for a refund of $20 per hard drive for you."

      • leyton01 on 14/03/2025 - 16:48

        Which would be a better bet - certified refurbished or the fake "new" ones.

        I can't remember what the average price difference was between new and refurbed either, might have been around $20.

  • leyton01 on 14/03/2025 - 12:08

    I've always avoided using Docker containers on my Synology - didn't really have the time to invest and the project to compel me to learn. I do want to check my EB drives though - how much effort and learning curve is it to check drives installed in a Synology? Any walk-through guides recommended?

    • gadgetguy on 15/04/2025 - 00:44

      Same boat - did you ever figure it out?

  • crossgun on 17/03/2025 - 13:20
    +2

    Update to my previous post - all the 6 TB drives I had have been returned to East Digital last week and I have now received a full refund earlier this morning for all of them without any fuss. Credit where it's due - ED have handled the situation well at least in my case.

    Have picked up a pair of factory recertified Exos 16TB drives as a replacement which passed the SMART vs FARM check - though that might not mean much anymore thanks to the recent developments. Will just have to wait and see.

    • mrhugo on 18/03/2025 - 14:31

      Well done. I think you got out of this better than you started as those 6TB would have deprecated a bit.

      Did you get the 16's from ED, what were those hours like?

      • crossgun on 19/03/2025 - 11:07

        Yep did get those Exos 16TB from ED again - both had zero hours on SMART and FARM when I stuck them into my Unraid system and ran the check.
        Either no one has touched them since Seagate recertified them (hopefully) or there is the chance it's part of the newest discovered batch where they allegedly managed to reset FARM data as well. DOM for both drives are in 2020 (one in Jan and the other in Nov).

        If it does turn out to be the latter at least I'll be more confident in ED to try and make things right.
        Would be nice to see if there's a way to confirm the date they were recertified but there doesn't seem to be after trying to search online.
        That said the QR codes on the stickers do work and also check out on Seagate's verification website so hopefully we're good.

  • paracaps on 12/04/2025 - 00:38

    I purchased my Seagate EXOS x20 18TB back in July 2023 from Neology and thankfully the farm values passed.

  • gadgetguy on 15/04/2025 - 00:39

    Any way to run this from the command line on my Synology NAS?

    Doesn't recognise "smartctl -l farm pd0"

    " smartctl -l farm pd0
    smartctl 6.5 (build date Oct 7 2021) [x86_64-linux-3.10.108] (local build)
    Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

    =======> INVALID ARGUMENT TO -l: farm"
    "

    Looks like I have a version of smartctl but without the farm option. Don't want to install and configure Docker just for this if there's any other way.

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