Seagate Exos X16 14 TB SATA (Manufacturer Recertified) - 130$

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nihonjin

Lost in translation
Mar 31, 2021
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Out of the Loop here. This seems like a great deal - is this company known for bad practices?

I almost purchased from them on BF sale, but held off due to higher priorities. Is this a company to avoid?
Other users reported that those drives are not under any kind of seagate warranty, and read something somewhere about cleaning smart info
 
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EasyRhino

Well-Known Member
Aug 6, 2019
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yes, the warranty is definitely not from seagate, but a seller warranty of 2 years from serverpartsdeals

As for wiping of smart info, there hasn't been any reports of them doing that lately, i think it was a couple of years ago when they were not really distinguishing refurbished from used.

I got one of their refurb drive, and there was an "os recertified" mark on the drive itself, not on a sticker, that made it look like it was put there by seagate, for what that's worth.
 

aeg

Member
May 6, 2019
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Other users reported that those drives are not under any kind of seagate warranty, and read something somewhere about cleaning smart info
I believe the SMART clearing was only on the de-branded "Water Panther" drives sold by the same parent company as ServerPartDeals?

I bought some manufacturer recertified drives from ServerPartDeals a few months ago. I can confirm that the serial numbers show as no warranty on the manufacturer websites. The ServerPartDeals product page says there is a 2-year warranty. The ServerPartDeals return policy page says: "ServerPartDeals.com warrants this product against defects in materials or workmanship for the time period specified on ServerPartDeals.com or through a requested Warranty Certificate for your purchased product. During this period, ServerPartDeals.com will replace defective parts with new or reconditioned parts at ServerPartDeals.com’s option."

Presumably Seagate sold these drives with the understanding that they never want to see them again and any warranty is the reseller's problem.
 

newabc

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2019
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I believe the SMART clearing was only on the de-branded "Water Panther" drives sold by the same parent company as ServerPartDeals?

I bought some manufacturer recertified drives from ServerPartDeals a few months ago. I can confirm that the serial numbers show as no warranty on the manufacturer websites. The ServerPartDeals product page says there is a 2-year warranty. The ServerPartDeals return policy page says: "ServerPartDeals.com warrants this product against defects in materials or workmanship for the time period specified on ServerPartDeals.com or through a requested Warranty Certificate for your purchased product. During this period, ServerPartDeals.com will replace defective parts with new or reconditioned parts at ServerPartDeals.com’s option."

Presumably Seagate sold these drives with the understanding that they never want to see them again and any warranty is the reseller's problem.
I got a refurbished seagate x16 16tb from serverpartdeals.com couples of month ago, too. It is working and no problem.

I guess those drives were used in datacenters for over 1000 days, no more than 3 years, if their total workload was much lower than the regular 550TB/year on its specs, then Seagate refurbished them, so serverpartdeals estimated most of them can work 2 years more.

I agree your opinion that Seagate "never want to see them again and any warranty is the reseller's problem".
 

triples

Member
Nov 2, 2019
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Are these recertified units better for cold backup (to reduce the run-time) or online backup (so I know if it is alive or dead)?
 
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Samir

Post Liker and Deal Hunter Extraordinaire!
Jul 21, 2017
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HSV and SFO
Are these recertified units better for cold backup (to reduce the run-time) or online backup (so I know if it is alive or dead)?
After not having some drives turn on a few years (decades?) back, I only run drives online now. If it's dead, I want to know asap.
 
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Samir

Post Liker and Deal Hunter Extraordinaire!
Jul 21, 2017
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As I see the price went up to 145$.
You can find more details in the comment section on the slickdeal posting.
comment section as forum thread for easier reading here:
 
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newabc

Well-Known Member
Jan 20, 2019
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Below is from Slickdeals' community wiki (link) on firmware update, TLER enable/disable, adjusting power management mode of X16 series HDDs, written by MWink of slickdeals.net:

Mine came with outdated firmware (SN03, current version is SN04). You can get the update from Seagate's site by putting in your serial number. The download takes forever because it's close to dial-up speeds. It comes with a cross-platform command-line utility. I booted to a live Linux session to do the update. Instructions are included. Be careful, the commands are case-sensitive.

This drive has TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) which is usually intended for RAID setups. I think it's probably fine to leave this enabled, even when used on its own. The default timer appears to be 10 seconds. If the drive can't sort things out in that period, I doubt more time is going to make much of a difference. You can disable (or adjust) it with smartmontools (also included with GSmartControl). However, the setting must be reapplied after every power cycle. Here is the command:

smartctl -l scterc,0,0 /dev/sdX

(Replace sdX with the designation of your drive.)

This drive does not support conventional APM (Advanced Power Management). However, it does have power-saving features. It has multiple modes, including one that parks the heads and another that reduces the spindle speed. These are enabled by default and too aggressive for my tastes. You can use the SeaChest utility to adjust or disable these. Here are the commands for the Windows version:

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -s

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -d PDx --showEPCSettings

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -d PDx --EPCfeature disable

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -d PDx --powerBalanceFeature info

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -d PDx --powerBalanceFeature disable

Use the first command to determine the "handle" of your drive. For the subsequent commands, replace the "PDx" with your drive's handle. The second and forth commands display the current status of those features. The third and fifth commands disable the respective features. These settings DO appear to persist through power cycles.
 

watersb

New Member
Jun 11, 2016
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New Mexico
I built a ZFS server using Seagate drives from this vendor, ServerPartDeals. I had a high DOA rate on the first shipment -- but they immediately cross-shipped replacement drives. I paid for shipping the defective units. A bit of a hassle, but these were recertified units at low price.

i would prefer to buy new drives from the manufacturer, but that price premium is steep.
 
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Fritz

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Apr 6, 2015
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I built a ZFS server using Seagate drives from this vendor, ServerPartDeals. I had a high DOA rate on the first shipment -- but they immediately cross-shipped replacement drives. I paid for shipping the defective units. A bit of a hassle, but these were recertified units at low price.

i would prefer to buy new drives from the manufacturer, but that price premium is steep.
Yea, that price premium will forever keep me buying used. Lately I've been buying nothing but 12G drives because they're bound to be the newest and hopefully the least used and abused. I just ordered the rest of the drives I need to finish a TrueNAS build. The 12G drives cost a few bucks more on average but I think it's well worth the extra expense.
 

ano

Well-Known Member
Nov 7, 2022
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with X20 18TB at $268 new now... even my homelab got new vs used now.

guessing we will see prices on used drop