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

[Giles Coochey]

On 07/10/2013 19:28, John R Pierce wrote:
> On 10/7/2013 5:59 AM, Eliezer Croitoru wrote:
>> I am still wating for WD or SEAGATE representetive of them to describe
>> for me the details of how a how a drive was made from 0 to 100.
> I'm sure they both consider that information trade secret.
>
> its my understanding that testing done on the factory floor leaves the
> counters cleared when the final firmware is installed.  Ditto factory
> 'remanufactured' aka 'refurbished' drives that are tested, and
> relabeled, they get cleared after test.  last one of these I got, sold
> as such, had a different colored label (green instead of silver) and
> clearly said remanufactured, I'm pretty sure its SMART data was also
> reset.     What the OP got appears to be a drive that was returned,
> retested and resold somewhere in the distributor-retailer train, NOT by
> the factory, hence what people refer to as 'grey market'.
>
>
I've replaced a number of Seagate 1TB SAS drives, constellations I 
think, and at least 2 of the 3 replacements I've done were with drives 
that were clearly marked as for RMA REPLACEMENT ONLY, which I assume are 
previously 'failed' drives that have gone back, been re-assessed / 
re-furbished and put back into the market.
I don't know much about SMART, but I get the impression that the drives 
decide to fail themselves when some metric goes anomalous, rather than 
continue running and potentially cause data corruption. Therefore 
there's likely to be a large number of drives that can be tweaked to go 
back into production after they have 'failed'
If I buy a drive from a retailer, then I expect a factory 'new' one 
though, hence my request for the manufacturer and retailer to be named 
by the OP.

-- 
Regards,

Giles Coochey, CCNP, CCNA, CCNAS
NetSecSpec Ltd
+44 (0) 8444 780677
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giles at coochey.net