EXPIRED Samsung/Netapp 7.68TB PM1643 SAS SSD - ebay - EUR 250

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luckylinux

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Mar 18, 2012
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seller might take offers, haven't tried

Well Firmware might NOT be affected by 32k Hours Bug, given that the SMART Output (at least for the one Device he posted) is 48'567 Hours.

No Clue about the exact Firmware Version though.

Very Low Writes (60 TB) for such a Drive though.
 

ca3y6

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Apr 3, 2021
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It was manufactured the year the bug was discovered and the firmware is MS05 (you can see it in the smartctl screenshot), so I am inclined to think it includes the fix.

Personally I would have bought some, but I just have no use for them. They would replace some 6.4TB drives I just bought and I don't see the point.
 
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luckylinux

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It was manufactured the year the bug was discovered and the firmware is MS05 (you can see it in the smartctl screenshot), so I am inclined to think it includes the fix.

Personally I would have bought some, but I just have no use for them. They would replace some 6.4TB drives I just bought and I don't see the point.
The Biggest I got so far is the 3.84TB I got IIRC from an older link you posted from the US (I'm still waiting for some Cables to test them though).
 

uldise

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Jul 2, 2020
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interesting - as i see in SMART pic, they are already formatted to 512b? and then would they work in netapp?
 

ca3y6

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luckylinux

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The poster may have had a bad drive, I owned four X357_S16433T8ATE which I just sold, firmware NA55, which I converted from 520 to 4096 and then to 512 without any problem.

As uldise mentioned, they are already 512b, so can be used as is in any system... except perhaps netapp where they would likely need to be reformatted back to 520
Which is weird and does NOT match the Description of the Seller.

They can either be used in Netapp or with a low level format most probably also in other servers supporting SAS SSD.
 

ca3y6

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Which is weird and does NOT match the Description of the Seller.
what is weird? That the seller assumed they are 520? Lots of IT recyclers aren't specialist in OEM SAS drives (which is by the way how we get the best deals). That a Netapp drive may be formatted in 512 natively? That's certainly possible and was the case of all the large Netapp drives I bought recently (6.4TB, 15.36TB), and they also didn't have a model name starting in "X", just like the one advertised here. Also the smartctl isn't the one from the drive pictured, which was manufactured in 2019, so a year after the bug was discovered, safe to assume the original firmware was patched. But the description does mention multiple manufacturing dates.

So no red flag as far as I can tell.
 
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luckylinux

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what is weird? That the seller assumed they are 520? Lots of IT recyclers aren't specialist in OEM SAS drives (which is by the way how we get the best deals). That a Netapp drive may be formatted in 512 natively? That's certainly possible and was the case of all the large Netapp drives I bought recently (6.4TB, 15.36TB), and they also didn't have a model name starting in "X", just like the one advertised here. Also the smartctl isn't the one from the drive pictured, which was manufactured in 2019, so a year after the bug was discovered, safe to assume the original firmware was patched. But the description does mention multiple manufacturing dates.

So no red flag as far as I can tell.
To be honest I'm thinking whether to go with this Drive or rather several ~ 2TB SATA Drives.

I have 3 x 24 Bays to fill in plus other Servers as well, so it's not like I need big Drives everywhere.

SATA has a Power Consumption Advantage for sure over SAS. And somewhat lower Risk too for roughly the same Price (if I lose a 7.68 TB, that's ~ 240 EUR, if I lose a ~ 2TB, that's ~ 70 EUR).
 
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ca3y6

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Makes sense. I have two 2U servers in colocation. The primary I packed with SAS drives as I like the higher capacity and performance (though it is pissed away on Windows Storage Space, even in mirror configuration), the other I just downgraded from SAS to SATA for the lower power consumption. I also fit another couple dozen SATA drives inside, between the motherboard and the chassis fans, to make up for the lower size.

I also noticed that my supermicro SAS expander didn't seem to like mixing SAS and SATA, it seems to me that the SAS3 SSDs were operating at 6gb/s speed.

You can find cheap 3.84TB SATA drives on ebay, which I think are better price/power consumption value than 1.92TB drives. 7.68TB SATA drives are very hard to find cheap, very little supply and if they are cheap they go in seconds.
 
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luckylinux

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Makes sense. I have two 2U servers in colocation. The primary I packed with SAS drives as I like the higher capacity and performance (though it is pissed away on Windows Storage Space, even in mirror configuration), the other I just downgraded from SAS to SATA for the lower power consumption. I also fit another couple dozen SATA drives inside, between the motherboard and the chassis fans, to make up for the lower size.

I also noticed that my supermicro SAS expander didn't seem to like mixing SAS and SATA, it seems to me that the SAS3 SSDs were operating at 6gb/s speed.
I never tried to use an Expander, but in the early Days of ZFS it seems that SATA with Expander could cause Data Loss / Corruption. That appears to have quickly been resolved though.

You can find cheap 3.84TB SATA drives on ebay, which I think are better price/power consumption value than 1.92TB drives. 7.68TB SATA drives are very hard to find cheap, very little supply and if they are cheap they go in seconds.
Define "Cheap" 3.84TB SATA Drives ;) . They seem to be 200 USD + VAT on eBay ...
 

ca3y6

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I don't mean there are cheap SATA drives right now, but they come often enough. I haven't been advertising them here as until recently I still had appetite for more (and often they are small lots, so not sure it makes sense to advertise them here, I would think you need a min stock of like 6 drives to be worth mentioning it here). I think I bought something like 80 3.84TB SATA drives in a $80-150 range over the last year.

But that requires to take some risks. For instance I bought a big batch at a steep discount as they were advertised as 25% health. They were slow but turned out to be 99% health, and just required a firmware update to perform again. Also bought from new sellers, bought auctions on large lots (8-10 drives) where you often have less bidders, etc. If you wait to have all the guarantees in place before you make a purchase, you miss on most great deals. Also good to develop a good relationship with some private sellers. They run the risk of getting scammed themselves on ebay and appreciate when they have a reliable buyer who will buy in bulk quickly (quasi-private transactions).

Got scammed a couple of times, but ebay repaid me. Also purchased a couple of IBM SAS SSDs that were locked down and were a write off (will never touch IBM SAS SSDs again). So you win most of the time and lose occasionally.
 

luckylinux

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I don't mean there are cheap SATA drives right now, but they come often enough. I haven't been advertising them here as until recently I still had appetite for more (and often they are small lots, so not sure it makes sense to advertise them here, I would think you need a min stock of like 6 drives to be worth mentioning it here). I think I bought something like 80 3.84TB SATA drives in a $80-150 range over the last year.
Holy ****. 80 x 3.84 TB Drives :oops: :oops: :oops: ?

EDIT 1: is that $80-150 excluding VAT and Shipping ?
 
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ca3y6

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Excluding customs tax and shipping. But when I buy in the EU I get it delivered to some relatives and pick them up when I travel there, no VAT in the UK unless it's a business seller, I only pay customs from the US if it's above the threshold of I think £135 though I never understand their calculations.
 
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luckylinux

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Excluding customs tax and shipping. But when I buy in the EU I get it delivered to some relatives and pick them up when I travel there, no VAT in the UK unless it's a business seller, I only pay customs from the US if it's above the threshold of I think £135 though I never understand their calculations.
I don't know how you do it to get these good Deals. The eBay Saved Searches seem to be VERY inaccurate and of course up to 24h late.

Maybe I should start Playing with the API and query by Part Number Directly. I had a look at some Python API Libraries but never gotten too much into it. I played with other APIs before and I would say eBay is probably amongst the worst ones ...
 

ca3y6

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The main benefit of the API is that it returns a json object and you can apply lots of filters on that. So for instance you can get rid of items where multiple sizes are advertised, and where the search picks it up because of the price of the lowest size. You also get to search on multiple ebay platforms (right now I only do UK, US and DE). You can't really search by part number as the descriptions are awefully inconsistent and imprecise on ebay, and then you have all the OEM alternatives. But if you search for enterprise SSD sizes (3.2TB, 3.84TB), you filter out lots of garbage. The only problem is Intel 4TB drives, and my main source of garbage.

Then you need to be smart about the logic for parsing the description and filtering out unwanted stuff (cases, USB, ps5, external, etc). Also need some logic for spotting lots of multiple drives (so you can filter by price per TB rather than absolute price, a $400 lot of 4x 3.84TB drive is a great deal).