[CentOS] "Enterprise Class Hard Drive" - Scam Warning

[Eliezer Croitoru]

Hey,

I was wondering about enterprise class drives:
Do you really expect the drive to be shipped to you before even a basic
validation test?
Do you understand that a basic spindown to the car is needed to make
sure that all the parts are fine and the car actually works??
I would try to imagine myself this:
Hmm OK this is your new car "bam: Hoo we forgot to start the engine and
make sure that you have a bit of gas to make it to the next gas station"
hoo and "sorry this is the first time we turn the switch on since the
assembly of the car so feel free to test it for us.."

Eliezer

On 10/02/2013 07:24 PM, Steve Brooks wrote:
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I know many of us here manage RAID on our Centos based servers so this may 
> be of interest to us all.
> 
> I ordered three new "Enterprise hard drives" this month from a well known 
> UK online retailer. The drives arrived as new in their anti-static 
> packaging. Before using one of the drives in a mission critical hardware 
> raid I checked the SMART attributes and was amazed at what I saw; see a 
> few of the attributes listed below
> 
>    1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  -   2600
>    9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   098   097   000    Old_age   -   2106
>   12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   -     80
> 198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   196   196   000    Old_age   -    398
> 200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   180   180   000    Old_age   -   4077
> 
> 
> So for a brand new packaged drive this was a bit of a surprise. "2106" 
> power on hours, obviously should be zero for a new drive and "398" 
> "Offline_Uncorrectable sectors" this is a well used and faulty drive. I 
> contacted the (very well known) manufacturer of the drive and asked for 
> information on the serial number. I was told the serial number of the 
> drive was region specific to the USA and should not even be in the UK. I 
> opened and tested the second and third drives with similar results. I was 
> told two of the drives had already been returned under warranty and 
> replaced with new drives. Wow... I was also told by the online retailer 
> this is known as a grey import and is not that uncommon..
> 
> So it may be a good policy to check the SMART attributes of drives before 
> deployment!
> 
> Cheers, Steve
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