Question HDD in Aliexpress

[johna77]

I bought a 2.5" HDD on Aliexpress, I know this drive is used but it shows few hours of use and good health in crystal diskinfo. What do the Chinese change in the HDD to mask hours of use and true health?
Do they also change or remove important HDD functions such as head parking and drive power management?

 

[Jan Janowski]

I've bought and got away with 4K security cams on the cheap from Ali Express, but not SSD's..
Though it Passed all Diagnostics H2testw and Validrive.. (Yes! it PASSED! They are getting quite sneaky with their SSD Controller firmware code writing!)
It still died under high SSD useage.... I undersand you said HD and Me SSD but:
My vote is Still: NO (I AM a Seagate Fanboy! Hold-over from work!)

 

[johna77]

???

 

[Telos]

???

You've just been Jan-ed

 

[Coop777]

I bought a 2.5" HDD on Aliexpress, I know this drive is used but it shows few hours of use and good health in crystal diskinfo. What do the Chinese change in the HDD to mask hours of use and true health?
Do they also change or remove important HDD functions such as head parking and drive power management?

Best practice is to purchase boxed retail Enterprise or NAS rated drives. You are playing with fire otherwise.....

 

[Telos]

I bought a 2.5" HDD on Aliexpress

Is this a NAS-rated drive? There are few 2.5 inch drives suitable for NAS use. PC drives will not endure well.

 

[zombiephysicist]

I agree about not trusting such 'knock off' outlets for DATA. Worse then them masking how much use the drives actually have endured, I worry about what other trojan crud can be reprogrammed into the firmware. Absolutely not worth it even for non important data as it may just introduce new vectors of compromise into your system.

 

[johna77]

sellers Aliexpress Do they change or disable some system settings (such as power management) within the firmware and does this affect the parking system?

my hdds Western Digital WDC WD10JPVX-08JC3T5, HGST APPLE HDD HTS541010A99E662 inside enclosure kesu 2530

 

[Jan Janowski]

Had a recent issue as alluded above. Let some time go by, as it was still in play.
More info on it.. Blue drive. Looks like WD.
But it’s not! eBay purchase. Price decent for 2, but not inexpensive. Guy says he bought package deal, these were leftovers, not used.
I had a project needing 2, not for NAS.
The moment they arrived, I knew I was in trouble. Says BLUE but NOT WD. Label shows both have same serial numbers.
Came with 2 partitions enabled one Chinese characters. GRC Program says it’s 4TB, but serial # in software doesn’t match label, but both drives the same serial number again-not matching labels.
First failed in copy of large files in USB Enclosure, corrupting, partition.
Second failed copy on second enclosure on second system. Partitions remained on this one.
Documented it all, contacted seller, explained I wanted to return both. Seller agreed. As I was putting return label on bag sent to me found out he bought them from someone else and slapped my label over unopened envelope.
Things now refunded.
Be aware!
Addendum: Found identical drive on AliExpress. I suspect purchaser 1 sold to 2, who sold to me. I feel lucky EBay had money back guarantee. I’ve never encountered such as this.