Untrustworthy seller: [Ebay-US] New 18TB WD Ultrastar DC HC655 - $239.95/ea + free shipping

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Dec 19, 2020
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$13.33/TB

Apparently there's a non-public tool for converting these drives to 22TB SMR, while they come default as 18TB CMR.
 

Bjorn Smith

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Sep 3, 2019
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Apparently there's a non-public tool for converting these drives to 22TB SMR, while they come default as 18TB CMR.

I doubt this will ever catch on, but you never know :) - I think I would always chose the CMR - unless I was 100% certaing that I wanted to use drive as a WORM drive.

Also:

 
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Bert

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Mar 31, 2018
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Smr is great solution for my usage scenarios but I haven't had a chance to invest into understanding host managed smr. I heard xfs doesn't support it but latest ext4 does. Has anyone using host managed smr?
 
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EasyRhino

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Aug 6, 2019
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these are wild. new drives but no warranty. So they fall off the back of the truck or something.

also from that opencompute slide deck, I liked the line " Disk IOPS is a perishable resource -- “use it or lose it” "
 

Damo

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Sep 7, 2022
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How do these perform vs Western Digital 14TB 7.2K 12Gbps 512MB 3.5" SAS HDD WUH721414AL5201
 
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BackupProphet

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Jul 2, 2014
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Smr is great solution for my usage scenarios but I haven't had a chance to invest into understanding host managed smr. I heard xfs doesn't support it but latest ext4 does. Has anyone using host managed smr?
I think currently most filesystems do not really support SMR drivers properly. I do know investigation is happening in Ceph and ZFS. However the thing about SMR is that they're mostly optimized for appending writes and they are really bad for updates. Current filesystems doesn't support this behavior. For any big company with strong developers, creating a custom filesystem with C/Rust that talks to libzbc/libzbd will big a big win for storage efficiency and performance of SMR drives. Dropbox has already implemented this. No open source solutions yet, as it is considered a slight competitive advantage. I've been thinking about implementing this myself, but not found the time for it yet.

You can read a lot more about the state of SMR in software here Zoned Storage | Zoned Storage
 
Dec 19, 2020
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So I ordered some drives. Seller created a shipping label and the asked me for permission to open the seal and test the drives. I said no, keep them sealed and I will test them when they arrive. They did it anyway (who knows if they were even sealed in the first place) because they say they've been getting returns due to issues with the drives...
 

Bjorn Smith

Well-Known Member
Sep 3, 2019
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So I ordered some drives. Seller created a shipping label and the asked me for permission to open the seal and test the drives. I said no, keep them sealed and I will test them when they arrive. They did it anyway (who knows if they were even sealed in the first place) because they say they've been getting returns due to issues with the drives...
I would return the drives, just to **** them up when you explicitly said - do not open the drives. And just because its sold as New in unopened packaging.
 

sic0048

Active Member
Dec 24, 2018
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So I ordered some drives. Seller created a shipping label and the asked me for permission to open the seal and test the drives. I said no, keep them sealed and I will test them when they arrive. They did it anyway (who knows if they were even sealed in the first place) because they say they've been getting returns due to issues with the drives...
That's super shady..... I also would return the drives. Too many red flags on this deal IMHO.
 

odditory

Moderator
Dec 23, 2010
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So I ordered some drives. Seller created a shipping label and the asked me for permission to open the seal and test the drives. I said no, keep them sealed and I will test them when they arrive. They did it anyway (who knows if they were even sealed in the first place) because they say they've been getting returns due to issues with the drives...
This is a tactic, not to mention bait and switch. It's to get a buyer on written record in ebay messaging to unwittingly agree to a post-purchase downgrade to Used/Refurb for what was advertised New to capture a higher price. It's leverage against the buyer for several scenarios if buyer complains or returns.

No negative feedback, Top Rated and has item set for free seller paid returns - this guy knows the ebay game because that combo is a trap that gives seller max leverage in a dispute. He's savvy getting neg feedback removed, and leverages the "buyer had agreed to the thing they're complaining about" in his supporting evidence for the removals.

This item was suspect the moment I saw "August 2022" production date + "no warranty", because it means nothing else about the description of the item should be taken at face value.
 
Dec 19, 2020
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Agree, that message was a red flag to me too. Will be returning them once they arrive (Ebay requires photos to initiate a return).
 
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odditory

Moderator
Dec 23, 2010
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Agree, that message was a red flag to me too. Will be returning them once they arrive (Ebay requires photos to initiate a return).
Ideally you could refuse the package so seller has less leverage for restocking fee.

Inevitably there will be the one or two predictable outliers that ordered one or more of these drives, and will post "well I got the drives and they powered on and seem to work, not sure what the big deal was", and as always they'll miss the greater point: being skeptical by default on greymarket equipment is in your best interest, because there are a lot of shenanigans in this space - mostly in subtle misrepresentation. There are some great deals to be had, just have to be on alert for the landmines that can cost you time and energy.
 
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