BTW guys... I've completed testing my first batch of 20 of these HDDs. Sadly, I did find 2 drives that were a bit weak. 1 keeps failing SMART short tests. and a 2nd one also fails SMART short/long tests, but also failed badblocks and showed several (20+) uncorrectable read errors. I contacted them through ebay (since my 1st order was via ebay) and they said they would replace it after they receive the problematic drives. That would be about 2 weeks (1 wk transit time between seller and me) to get them replaced. I contacted Scott about this and they are sending out replacements ASAP without first receiving the return ones! So, in general, it is advantageous to work with Scott directly if you have problems, but they don't have any issues replacing drives if required.
if these are truly brand new drives, as they seem to be with all indications so far, i'm not that surprised to have found a couple of bad ones. in general i find more problems with brand new drives than i do with drives that have a few thousand hours on them. as someone else also mentioned, slightly used drives that haven't exhibited any issues tend to be the good ones after weeding out the problematic ones of the batch.
if these are truly brand new drives, as they seem to be with all indications so far, i'm not that surprised to have found a couple of bad ones. in general i find more problems with brand new drives than i do with drives that have a few thousand hours on them. as someone else also mentioned, slightly used drives that haven't exhibited any issues tend to be the good ones after weeding out the problematic ones of the batch.