used HGST in label but TOSHIBA DT01ABA200 in bios

[myfairx]

Hi guys.

my first time visiting and posting. quite a place this forum

Today I received a 3.5 HDD (assumed used/refurb) that I bought from a local online seller. The seller advertised the disk as 2TB Ultrastar HGST and I purchased it for 30usd. the drive came in with HGST label but bios reported it as TOSHIBA DT01ABA200. now I understand HGST and Toshiba had rebadges in the past but seems weird that why it use HGST label? I suspect a dishonest seller selling fakes.

I ran smart test. all good but perhaps too good. it says the Power On Hour Count as 19. if this is used / refurbed, could the smart value being tampered? the drive is at least 8 years old by now

I'm using this as parity drive for my JBOD nas + snapraid. copy all the parity from old drive (1tb) and run snapraid full scrub. All good. the copy speed also very consistent 140MBps (old sata II motherboard) However my biggest drive in the array is 1TB so the parity file won't exceeds 1TB at the moment

should I be concern and initiate refund? I don't mind its actually good deal anyway because the drive so quiet and cool.

sorry for my bad english

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[napalm_atx]

Yes, it's fake, HGST Ultrastar looks different. And yes on DT01ABA200 SMART can be reseted

[myfairx]

thank you for the reply. perhaps I should run burn in test? I don't mind if the parity gets destroyed because I still have the old parity disk

this is my first time with nas build. it's a media server, nothing critical. nas grade is expensive in my country and cheaper drives nowadays uses SMR. many seller also sells WD Re or RE4. but after getting this I suspect many are fake too. How rampant HDD fakes or smart tampering actually is?

any safe bet on buying tips is welcomed. TQVM

[labtech]

On the edge of the chassis, there should be two while labels. Could you post a photo of that?

[myfairx]

I will .but on holiday now . I'll post when I get back home tq.

[myfairx]

this label?

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[labtech]

this label?

Thanks.

On the chassis, the small label on the right is the drive's Serial Number, which does not seem to match with the SN on the label located on the cover.
It is possible that it was a branded Toshiba drive with the DT01... model and someone slapped a new HGST label on the cover.

However, from a firmware architecture perspective, it is a Hitachi/HGST drive, which I assume it is confusing to you.
Reason being is WD, who owns both the Toshiba and Hitachi HDD lines of products, few years ago, began rebranding Hitachi drives with a Toshiba label.

[fzabkar]

this label?

Reason being is WD, who owns both the Toshiba and Hitachi HDD lines of products, few years ago, began rebranding Hitachi drives with a Toshiba label.

???

I seem to recall that WD's acquisition of HGST was initially blocked on competition grounds, with the relevant authorities requiring that HGST continue to supply 3.5" models to Toshiba until the predetermined date of the WD/HGST merger. In the interim period Toshiba developed its own 3.5" models.

Is that not the case?

[labtech]

I don't know anything about competition rules in this case and any other implications, sorry.

[fzabkar]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGST

On March 8, 2012, Western Digital (WD) acquired Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for $3.9 billion in cash and 25 million shares of WD common stock valued at approximately $0.9 billion. The deal resulted in Hitachi, Ltd. owning approximately 10 percent of WD shares outstanding, and reserving the right to designate two individuals to the board of directors of WD. Citing antitrust concerns, China's Ministry of Commerce required HGST to operate autonomously from Western Digital, restricting outright integration between the companies' operations. As a result, HGST continued to operate independently with its own product lines and product development.[4][5]

As part of the deal, Western Digital agreed to trade assets with Toshiba, with Toshiba receiving assets for the production of 3.5-inch hard drives (1, 2 and 3-platter drives produced in Shenzhen, China), in exchange for a Toshiba factory in Thailand for producing 2.5-inch drives (which had been inactive since the 2011 floods).[6]

[myfairx]

I'm pretty sure it's actually Toshiba drive and the seller (or middleman) just slapped the hgst label to get better brand recognition. searching for MC4 921 only add to the confusion since it is supposedly designated to Toshiba 3TB drive and not 2TB (MC4 721).

My concern at that time is, do I return the drive or risk using it, knowing the seller's misleading advertisement. But after doing some tests I decided to keep it.

another curious question.

if MC4 921 is really 3TB drive, can someone flash 2TB firmware thus rendering 1 platter inaccessible, leaving only 2 (in case of bad sector in 1 platter for instance)?