Brand new WD 6TB REDs already out of warranty

[pclausen]

So I picked up a pair of brand new, factory sealed 6TB Reds.

When I got them, the first thing I noticed was that the manufacturer date was 11 JUN 2014 on both of them. That was a bit disappointing as that means almost 1.5 years of the 3 year warranty has already passed.

Then I log into the WD support site to check the warranty status, and both drives show out of warranty and a Warranty Exp Date of 07/12/2014.

So these drives only had a 1 month warranty as opposed to 3 years???

The drives were definitely factory sealed in WD anti static bags with the WD sticker on them with the red WD pull of square label.

I contacted the seller (eBay) who had a 100% positive feedback and he got back to me right away that they were brand new, never used drives, so he had no idea why they would be out of warranty.

I opened a support case with WD yesterday, but it is still just sitting in an open status.

Both drives completed the SMART tests with no issues and I'm currently running badblocks on them both. So far so good. Fingers crossed that they will pass, or I'll apparently end up with 2 6TB paper weights...

Anyone else run into a situation like this with WDs?

 

[joeschmuck]

Odds are the seller was honest with you in the fact that they were new and unused drives. New doesn't always imply that they were recently manufactured. The seller could have picked up a lot of these drives for cheap, I mean, you should have paid a reduced price for drives as well.

That is odd that the WD warranty is wrong like that, hopefully it was just a glitch in their system and the drives were not refurbished with a short warranty period. 1 month sounds a bit short. I'm curious what the outcome is.

 

[anodos]

So I picked up a pair of brand new, factory sealed 6TB Reds.

When I got them, the first thing I noticed was that the manufacturer date was 11 JUN 2014 on both of them. That was a bit disappointing as that means almost 1.5 years of the 3 year warranty has already passed.

Then I log into the WD support site to check the warranty status, and both drives show out of warranty and a Warranty Exp Date of 07/12/2014.

So these drives only had a 1 month warranty as opposed to 3 years???

The drives were definitely factory sealed in WD anti static bags with the WD sticker on them with the red WD pull of square label.

I contacted the seller (eBay) who had a 100% positive feedback and he got back to me right away that they were brand new, never used drives, so he had no idea why they would be out of warranty.

I opened a support case with WD yesterday, but it is still just sitting in an open status.

Both drives completed the SMART tests with no issues and I'm currently running badblocks on them both. So far so good. Fingers crossed that they will pass, or I'll apparently end up with 2 6TB paper weights...

Anyone else run into a situation like this with WDs?

I think I've seen recrecertified/refurbed drives for sale with only 30 day warranties. Last time I bought drives, it took some work to find a good deal on new new drives. Most places with good prices were selling used / refurbed / whatever and not being up-front about it.

 

[joeschmuck]

Refurb, that's right, very possible. Is the label on the drive Red in color or all Black? I believe Black is a refurb.

If you find out this is the case, would you mind posting the seller of these drives to you? It might be nice to steer clear, of course assuming they do not correct the issue with a pair of verified 3 year drives.

 

[pclausen]

The add on Ebay read:

"New Sealed WD Red WD60EFRX 6TB IntelliPower 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" NAS HD"

I paid $220 each for free shipping, so $440 total.

Street price from the large sellers seems to be around $249 w/ free shipping, so I saved $30 per drive, which brought the price per TB below that of 4TB Reds from the large sellers, so that's what got me to pull the trigger.

Had I known they were 1.5 years old and may not have a warranty, I would paid the extra $30 per drive.

I'm disappointed that WD support didn't get back to me within 24 hours, but hopefully I'll hear from them Monday.

Label is Red and there are no marking indicating a refurb. It is identical to my other WD labels that I know are not refurbs. The sticker on the sealed antistatic bag also does not show any signs of it being a refurb.

Seller as 257 positive feedbacks at 100%. He only had 2 of these and does not offer returns. At the time I wasn't worried since I figured WD would provide the warranty, should I need it.

Badblocks is 3 hours in on the 1st pass and errors continue to be 0/0/0 so hopefully it will stay that way!

SMART stats on one of the drives as follows:

Code:

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     WDC WD60EFRX-68MYMN0
Serial Number:    WD-WX21D1404506
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 05929bc08
Firmware Version: 82.00A82
User Capacity:    6,001,175,126,016 bytes [6.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Rotation Rate:    5700 rpm
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   ACS-2, ACS-3 T13/2161-D revision 3b
SATA Version is:  SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 6.0 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sat Nov 21 07:07:14 2015 PST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      (   0) The previous self-test routine completed
                                        without error or no self-test has ever
                                        been run.
Total time to complete Offline
data collection:                ( 6824) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        Offline surface scan supported.
                                        Self-test supported.
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering
                                        power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.
Short self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.
Extended self-test routine
recommended polling time:        ( 722) minutes.
Conveyance self-test routine
recommended polling time:        (   5) minutes.
SCT capabilities:              (0x303d) SCT Status supported.
                                        SCT Error Recovery Control supported.
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.
                                        SCT Data Table supported.

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x002f   100   253   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0027   100   253   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       3
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x002e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       21
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0032   100   253   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       3
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       2
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       1
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   124   114   000    Old_age   Always       -       28
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0030   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0008   200   200   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
Num  Test_Description    Status                  Remaining  LifeTime(hours)  LBA_of_first_error
# 1  Extended offline    Completed without error       00%        13         -
# 2  Conveyance offline  Completed without error       00%         0         -
# 3  Short offline       Completed without error       00%         0         -

SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

 

[joeschmuck]

I hope the drives test out fine, it's just not having the warranty really sucks. Yea, I looked and say the current prices are $249 from NewEgg, my primary ordering spot.

I'm curious if WD would consider extending the warranty out 3 more years or better yet, just exchange your two drives with two brand new drives (not refurbs), even if you have to pay s&h costs.

 

[Z300M]

Odds are the seller was honest with you in the fact that they were new and unused drives. New doesn't always imply that they were recently manufactured. The seller could have picked up a lot of these drives for cheap, I mean, you should have paid a reduced price for drives as well.

That is odd that the WD warranty is wrong like that, hopefully it was just a glitch in their system and the drives were not refurbished with a short warranty period. 1 month sounds a bit short. I'm curious what the outcome is.

I've received two "Remanufactured" drives from Seagate as warranty replacements, and they had the balance of the warranty of the original drive. In one case, the replacement for an ST32000641AS (sold with 5-year warranty) was a "Remanufactured" ST2000DM001, normally sold with 2-year warranty, but this one still carrying the remainder of the original drive's 5-year warranty.

 

[anodos]

The 30 day warranty might indicate that they were drives destined for an OEM. I think OEMs cover things under their own warranties and so get drives at a reduced cost by effectively self-insuring or having defects covered under a separate agreement. See below:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/250877-32-drives-warranties

Let us know how things work out from WD. Might just be a website glitch.

Honestly, I never had problems RMAing a drive.

 

[Ericloewe]

OEM stuff typically doesn't even have a warranty, and the website typically reflects that.

Worst-case, show them proof of purchase and they should adjust the warranty period accordingly. Counting it from the date of manufacture is mostly a convenience thing.

 

[BigDave]

http://www.wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/releases/?release=1be20fb5-54da-4baf-9567-512f93b5dfff
According to this press release, the 6TB drives were annouced to the market in July of 2014.
My guess is that there's a glitch in the WD system somewhere. If no one wants to step to the plate,
and stand behind to warranty, I return those suckers pronto!

 

[pclausen]

They definitely look like the read deal. Pic one of the drives running badblocks on my desk: (I do have a fan blowing across them and temps are in the upper 20's)

And the static bag it came in (which looked to have a factory heat seal on it):

And the WD warranty check result:

Interesting they were announced to the market in July 2014. I kinda thought so and was very surprised by the June date on the label.

The best outcome would be if they pass badblocks and WD issues me a 3 year warranty from the date of my purchase last week.

 

[Z300M]

They definitely look like the read deal. Pic one of the drives running badblocks on my desk: (I do have a fan blowing across them and temps are in the upper 20's)

And the static bag it came in (which looked to have a factory heat seal on it):

And the WD warranty check result:

Interesting they were announced to the market in July 2014. I kinda thought so and was very surprised by the June date on the label.

The best outcome would be if they pass badblocks and WD issues me a 3 year warranty from the date of my purchase last week.

Engineering samples?

 

[tvsjr]

I wonder if these were sample/test drives, intended to go out various places for evaluation... that would explain the short warranty and the dates being ahead of the product release.

Unfortunately, caveat emptor where ebay is concerned.

 

[Ericloewe]

wonder if these were sample/test drives, intended to go out various places for evaluation... that would explain the short warranty and the dates being ahead of the product release.

It would make sense. No point in having a three-year warranty on a press review unit.

 

[BigDave]

Samples are a possibility, but I would think the company would have stock ready to ship at date of annoucement
and they kinda gave me that feeling...

Availability and Pricing
"Available now at select U.S. retailers and distributors, WD Red and WD Red Pro have three- and five-year limited regional warranties, respectively. Manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) for WD Red 5 TB (model #: WD50EFRX) is $249.00 USD, and $299.00 USD for 6 TB (model #: WD60EFRX)."

 

[pclausen]

I reached out to the eBay seller again, and as before, he got back to me right away. I asked if these were Engineering Samples, and when he got them. His response was:

--- cut ---
Those were provided for us to test, and were never used. As we received 6 to test. They were not engineering samples, as those have a white blank label if they were so. We were not a part of the press release, and received those around October or so of 2014.
--- cut ---

I'll see what WD comes back to me with, but based on the above response, I'm not very optimistic that they will give me a 3 year warranty.

That said, I have WD, Seagate and Hitachi 2TB drives that are well over 5 years old and 50,000+ hours on them that are still going strong with no errors. In the past, Seagate drives have given me the most grief. Over the years, I think I have RMA'ed 10 1TB ES.2 drives, and a handful of the 7200.10s.

So I think if the badblocks complete with no errors, I'll hold on to them. Unless I'll be able to pick these up on Black Friday for less than $220 a pop. :D I need 10 of these suckers before I'll realize any additional capacity in pool. My plan swap all 10 drives in my vdev containing my oldest 2TB drives, one drive at a time.

 

[pclausen]

Looks like NewEgg has a deal going on 2 of them:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Combo...6076&PID=227502&SID=goo_cat_Newegg_1121_70081

Not a bad deal! Decisions, decisions...

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

He only had 2 of these and does not offer returns.

Think very, very carefully before buying from an eBay seller who doesn't accept returns, unless you're buying items that are "For parts or not working".

My opinion is that the seller was economical with the truth. They owned up to the drives being samples only after you asked. That should have been part of the original listing, and may qualify you for an "item not as described" claim. If nothing else, the listing should have been "New Other" rather than "New". Check the condition definitions and see what I mean.

However, I would say odds are the drives will last just as long as any other WD Red. You might be unlucky and get an early failure, but you'll probably be fine. Just make sure to check the head park settings with wdidle3.

 

[tvsjr]

Considering you can get brand new drives from Amazon and others with a full warranty for only a few more dollars, I'd file a claim and see what happens. If nothing else, it's worth doing it just to keep the seller from being economical with the truth in the future.

 

[joeschmuck]

Looks like NewEgg has a deal going on 2 of them:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Combo...6076&PID=227502&SID=goo_cat_Newegg_1121_70081

Not a bad deal! Decisions, decisions...

That is still a lot of money for two hard drives, I can't wait to see what the prices are in another year.