eBay SSD Provenance?

[altano]

There's nothing sketchy in the SMART data. Looks like the vendor, serial #, and revision all match up to the exterior label:

> root@flash[~]# smartctl -x /dev/da0

smartctl 7.1 2019-12-30 r5022 [FreeBSD 12.2-RELEASE-p2 amd64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-19, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Vendor:               HGST
Product:              HUSTV1576ASS200
Revision:             a473
Compliance:           SPC-4
User Capacity:        7,681,501,126,656 bytes [7.68 TB]
Logical block size:   512 bytes
Physical block size:  4096 bytes
LU is resource provisioned, LBPRZ=1
Rotation Rate:        Solid State Device
Form Factor:          2.5 inches
Logical Unit id:      0x5000cca08d00101c
Serial number:        5WV0128X
Device type:          disk
Transport protocol:   SAS (SPL-3)
Local Time is:        Mon Feb  1 00:48:07 2021 PST
SMART support is:     Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is:     Enabled
Temperature Warning:  Enabled
Read Cache is:        Enabled
Writeback Cache is:   Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Health Status: OK

Percentage used endurance indicator: 2%
Current Drive Temperature:     44 C
Drive Trip Temperature:        70 C

Manufactured in week 42 of year 2017
Specified cycle count over device lifetime:  0
Accumulated start-stop cycles:  0
Specified load-unload count over device lifetime:  0
Accumulated load-unload cycles:  0
Elements in grown defect list: 0

Vendor (Seagate Cache) information
  Blocks sent to initiator = 213633194493214720

Error counter log:
           Errors Corrected by           Total   Correction     Gigabytes    Total
               ECC          rereads/    errors   algorithm      processed    uncorrected
           fast | delayed   rewrites  corrected  invocations   [10^9 bytes]  errors
read:          0        0         0         0          0    1211152.359           0
write:         0        0         0         0          0     382196.144           0

Non-medium error count:        0

SMART Self-test log
Num  Test              Status                 segment  LifeTime  LBA_first_err [SK ASC ASQ]
     Description                              number   (hours)
# 1  Background short  Completed                   -    1181                 - [-   -    -]
# 2  Background long   Completed                   -    1179                 - [-   -    -]

Long (extended) Self-test duration: 1320 seconds [22.0 minutes]

Background scan results log
  Status: no scans active
    Accumulated power on time, hours:minutes 1181:42 [70902 minutes]
    Number of background scans performed: 0,  scan progress: 0.00%
    Number of background medium scans performed: 0

Protocol Specific port log page for SAS SSP
relative target port id = 1
  generation code = 1
  number of phys = 1
  phy identifier = 0
    attached device type: expander device
    attached reason: SMP phy control function
    reason: unknown
    negotiated logical link rate: phy enabled; 6 Gbps
    attached initiator port: ssp=0 stp=0 smp=0
    attached target port: ssp=0 stp=0 smp=1
    SAS address = 0x5000cca08d00101d
    attached SAS address = 0x50030480007796bf
    attached phy identifier = 12
    Invalid DWORD count = 0
    Running disparity error count = 0
    Loss of DWORD synchronization = 0
    Phy reset problem = 0
    Phy event descriptors:
     Invalid word count: 0
     Running disparity error count: 0
     Loss of dword synchronization count: 0
     Phy reset problem count: 0
relative target port id = 2
  generation code = 1
  number of phys = 1
  phy identifier = 1
    attached device type: no device attached
    attached reason: unknown
    reason: unknown
    negotiated logical link rate: phy enabled; unknown
    attached initiator port: ssp=0 stp=0 smp=0
    attached target port: ssp=0 stp=0 smp=0
    SAS address = 0x5000cca08d00101e
    attached SAS address = 0x0
    attached phy identifier = 0
    Invalid DWORD count = 0
    Running disparity error count = 0
    Loss of DWORD synchronization = 0
    Phy reset problem = 0
    Phy event descriptors:
     Invalid word count: 0
     Running disparity error count: 0
     Loss of dword synchronization count: 0
     Phy reset problem count: 0

Prior to my installation the disk was only on for 50 hours and has 1.2 Petabytes read and 382 Terabytes write which can't be correct. I must be misreading the SMART data?

 

[altano]

WD/HGST got back to me on my support ticket and they say the serial # and said it's not real.

 

[Gio.P]

This is a bit alarming. I bought 8 drives myself but I bought them out of ebay so I'm out of luck if these are fakes.

 

[altano]

This is a bit alarming. I bought 8 drives myself but I bought them out of ebay so I'm out of luck if these are fakes.

From the same seller as me? He already offered me a full refund if I wasn't happy (in lieu of any information of the drives) so I'm sure you could get the same treatment. I don't know what I want to do myself at this point.

 

[T_Minus]

WD/HGST got back to me on my support ticket and they say the serial # and said it's not real.

Yikes.

Could they be not real serial # with WD\HGST but real OEM ?

 

[altano]

Could they be not real serial # with WD\HGST but real OEM ?

If WD can't tell us then I don't think we'll find out. Although, given how my ticket with WD was handled, I wouldn't be surprised if no one actually checked anything. The drives could still be real and I wouldn't be shocked.

The real question is just how fake are these drives? Did they roll off the same assembly line but go out the back door? Or are they barely a hard drive and stuffed with cotton candy? I have no idea how to figure that out as my disk forensics skills are basically zero. All I've determined is they turn on and the SMART data has the right vendor. ‍‍

 

[Markess]

If WD can't tell us then I don't think we'll find out. Although, given how my ticket with WD was handled, I wouldn't be surprised if no one actually checked anything. The drives could still be real and I wouldn't be shocked.

The real question is just how fake are these drives? Did they roll off the same assembly line but go out the back door? Or are they barely a hard drive and stuffed with cotton candy? I have no idea how to figure that out as my disk forensics skills are basically zero. All I've determined is they turn on and the SMART data has the right vendor. ‍‍

I can't speak to WD/HGST on this and even if I could, I can't speak to your experience. However, I think when you do a serial # check like that with a vendor, all you're going to get back is a Yes/No on if its a "direct from the vendor" serial number. So, at this point you've ruled out that its not "direct from the vendor", but that doesn't mean its not a legitimate, albeit OEM, drive. I doubt the WD/HGST support staff bother checking to see if its OEM once they determine they're off the hook for support, and in fact they may not have the tools at their level to check.

As for the legitimacy, there's software out there that will return the SSD's controller data, NAND manufacturer and/or model number, and other useful info. Knowing what's inside may be illuminating. But, I think most tools that can do this run with Windows. If you don't have a windows box handy, it may be useful to download and temporarily install a copy just to check the drive info. Microsoft have finally made it easy to download Windows 10 for free without a license or even site registration, and a Windows installation won't get really obnoxious about providing an activation key for a couple weeks. Plenty of time for testing, benchmarks and the like.

Not all tools work with all drives though. So if you give it a try you may need to try a couple different ones (SSD-Z, HGST Device Manager, etc.) to see if you can find one that reads the internals on your drives successfully.

On the subject of HGST Device Manager, their SSD "toolbox" software: I went looking for a download link to share and I couldn't find one on the WD/HGST site. I found a PDF on how to install & use it, but not the program itself. I did find some links on google for downloading it from third party sites, but I didn't try it myself. Even if the drive is OEM, the HGST toolbox software should be able to provide information on it. It just won't let you update firmware or do any advanced config if your drive supports it. You can even try other vendor's tools for that matter. Both Samsung's and Intel's tools seem to read details on the other's drives just fine on my workstation for example.

 

[Whaaat]

Prior to my installation the disk was only on for 50 hours and has 1.2 Petabytes read and 382 Terabytes write which can't be correct. I must be misreading the SMART data?

Did you mean 50 days ( 1181 hours)? Smart data looks perfectly valid for me. Endurance wear-out speed is close to or slightly higher than in HUSMR variant. Nothing fake about this drive, may be pre-production 'not for resale' specimen. Definitely not 'open box' but used one.

 

[itronin]

I still think these drives smell like pre-production/test/in house lab units.

 

[Markess]

I still think these drives smell like pre-production/test/in house lab units.

Yeah, not a lot of places (not any places?) where a manufacturer can sell a drive without at least some regulatory labels.

 

[itronin]

Yeah, not a lot of places (not any places?) where a manufacturer can sell a drive without at least some regulatory labels.

hmmm maybe coat pocket supply chain.

For me: I'd run 'em kinda hard initially for a couple of weeks to see how they behave and then use em in my office/home/lab infrastructure as long as I had a spare or didn't mind paying retail to replace a unit if/when one failed. Great price! good for personal use! don't lose any sleep over this.

 

[larrysb]

You can't even hand devices out on lend/loan to customers/developers without some kind of mark, or at least a disclaimer that the device has not been approved for sale.

So - something is odd about these. Not necessarily nefarious, but at least odd.

 

[altano]

I got all the drives into my system and the results were mixed.

2 of the drives were DOA, 1 had a failing controller (according to SMART), 2 had an OK SMART status with errors, and 5 were OK with no errors at all.

That's not great for unwarrantied drives, of course, but the seller was really great to deal with and is currently accepting my return for a full refund (after I declined to just replace the bad drives), so while the provenance of these drives is being called into question, there is nothing at all shady about the seller. I don't regret trying them out.