2015 Seagate are still selling brand new drives. That are old refurbished drives sold as brand new drives, and most people are still oblivious to this !
One does person buy a Seagate drive which is actually brand new. That drive has some problem that then is RMA back to Seagate. Which Seagate refurbish repair the drive and sell a brand new to another person. A Seagate hard drive can have many owners in its life before it is thrown away.


Here is one such drive it is unknown how many owners this hard drive has had so far. Scan done with Windows 7 SP1 with Victoria 4.46f Test with verify selected. Results below (top) showing a brand new Seagate new drive that is obviously a refurbished drive. I didn't let the scan complete to the end was 12+ hours in before I stopped it, the results below this are similar all the way through the test.

3:42:36 : ***** Scan results: Warnings - 8, errors - 0 *****
03:42:53 : Get passport... OK
03:42:53 : Model: ASMT 2105; Capacity: 4294967296 LBAs
03:43:03 : Get passport... OK
03:43:03 : Recallibration... OK
03:43:03 : Starting surface scan, LBA=0..4294967295, sequential access, timeout 10000ms
03:43:18 : Block start at 364032 = 109 ms
03:43:27 : Block start at 559872 = 110 ms
03:43:36 : Block start at 759808 = 109 ms
03:43:45 : Block start at 957696 = 109 ms
03:43:54 : Block start at 1155072 = 62 ms
03:44:18 : Block start at 1671168 = 78 ms
03:44:27 : Block start at 1853952 = 125 ms
03:44:36 : Block start at 2027776 = 109 ms
03:44:45 : Block start at 2208256 = 93 ms
03:44:54 : Block start at 2327040 = 93 ms
03:45:18 : Block start at 2634496 = 63 ms
03:45:27 : Block start at 2753024 = 109 ms
03:45:36 : Block start at 2955776 = 94 ms
03:46:03 : Block start at 3484160 = 109 ms
03:46:18 : Block start at 3799296 = 109 ms
03:46:27 : Block start at 3990016 = 94 ms
03:46:36 : Block start at 4179200 = 109 ms
03:46:45 : Block start at 4374528 = 63 ms
03:46:54 : Block start at 4560384 = 125 ms
03:47:18 : Block start at 4968704 = 94 ms
03:47:25 : Block start at 5057792 = 63 ms
03:47:27 : Block start at 5079040 = 109 ms
03:47:36 : Block start at 5205760 = 109 ms
03:47:45 : Block start at 5327104 = 110 ms
03:47:54 : Block start at 5443328 = 110 ms
03:48:18 : Block start at 5781760 = 109 ms
03:48:27 : Block start at 5973248 = 109 ms
03:48:36 : Block start at 6102528 = 110 ms
03:48:45 : Block start at 6224640 = 125 ms
03:49:18 : Block start at 6669056 = 110 ms
03:49:27 : Block start at 6784512 = 125 ms
03:49:36 : Block start at 6897664 = 94 ms
03:49:45 : Block start at 7011840 = 125 ms
03:49:54 : Block start at 7127040 = 78 ms
03:50:27 : Block start at 7561216 = 79 ms
03:50:36 : Block start at 7684096 = 109 ms
03:50:45 : Block start at 7812352 = 94 ms
03:50:55 : Block start at 7934464 = 109 ms
03:51:27 : Block start at 8405248 = 94 ms
03:51:36 : Block start at 8531456 = 125 ms
03:51:38 : Block start at 8549888 = 62 ms
03:51:45 : Block start at 8657408 = 94 ms
03:51:54 : Block start at 8783104 = 93 ms
03:52:27 : Block start at 9252864 = 78 ms
03:52:36 : Block start at 9383936 = 125 ms
03:52:45 : Block start at 9511168 = 141 ms
etc..
also..
06:25:28 : Warning! Block start at 242810368 = 516 ms
08:28:08 : Warning! Block start at 419854336 = 203 ms


When Compared the above drive to a much older older Seagate PATA drive (still used each day)

23:10:36 : ***** Scan results: no warnings, no errors *****
23:10:41 : Get passport... OK
23:10:41 : Model: ST3160023A; Capacity: 312581808 LBAs
23:10:48 : Get passport... OK
23:10:48 : Recallibration... OK
23:10:48 : Starting surface scan, LBA=0..312581807, sequential access, timeout 1000ms
23:36:35 : Block start at 97588224 = 78 ms
23:37:39 : Block start at 101477120 = 62 ms
23:59:01 : Block start at 180842496 = 93 ms
23:59:01 : Block start at 180842752 = 94 ms
23:59:02 : Block start at 180891392 = 140 ms
00:12:23 : Block start at 229249536 = 78 ms
00:29:34 : Block start at 293020672 = 63 ms
00:34:58 : ***** Scan results: Warnings - 7, errors - 0 *****



Still need to buy some new reliable drives I have been looking at Hitachi NAS Sata drives.


1. Are there any known problems when not using NAS drives in internal desktop pc case and not a NAS box ?

2. Also any other problems for the Hitachi NAS Sata TB drives are they known to be reliable or known to be problematic ?

Does the drive have the usual green edging around the main white label which signifies a refurbished drive?

No green on the label on any of the drives. No green colour on the hdd case either.

What makes you think it's a refurb then, apart from the poor performance?

IMHO the newer Seagate drives (especially the DM series) are imherently crap quality, built to a price, not to a quality standard.

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Tough they do look more like refurbished drives than new drives having so many errors. Crap quality it's any wonder they have any sales at all. Maybe then people just don't realise until the drive has problems. Then it's RMA for another refurbished drive or until they realise the poor quality drives that Seagate produce.

With the DM series drives been so bad. Which Seagate drives series are now known to be reliable !

I personally wouldn't touch any current desktop Seagate drives with the proverbial barge pole, although the 9mm laptop drives aren't too bad.

I personally favour Hitachi desktop drives.

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Would you be referring to rebadged Samsung drives?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

No, the 5400.6 series. They seem to be fairly sturdy IMHO.

The Samsung ones aren't great, we see more of those in for recovery than any other drive. They appear to be particularly susceptible to stiction for one thing.

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Well,
As i Have Resumed Work Last Week ,i have a fair bit collection of seagates .I would recommend WD black Series for daily use

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs [India]
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Yes, it's true they are nice drives. But expensive in comparison.

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New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!