To all,
I want to sincerely apologize for an unfortunate situation regarding the Seagate Exos 16TB drives that was sourced this time, after thorough testing and verification, it has come to my attention that the drives received are
not genuine Seagate Exos models but appear to be altered drives. I was expecting that these would have altered power on hours as that was normal in the current situation as a market.
This was completely unexpected, and I deeply regret any inconvenience or concern this may have caused. I take full responsibility for ensuring that every transaction I conduct is transparent and legitimate, and in this case, I was misled by my supplier. I've contacted a couple of members who purchased drives from my previous lot and I can confirm with 100% certainty that those batches were not affected.
Refund Process
For those who have already paid for these drives today,
I will be issuing full refunds.
Next Steps
- I am working with my supplier to address this issue and will be reporting the fraudulent nature of these drives.
- Moving forward, I will be implementing additional verification steps to avoid any such issues in the future.
I genuinely appreciate the trust and support this community has given me, and I deeply regret this situation. If anyone has concerns or needs further clarification, please feel free to reach out to me.
Once again, I apologize for this unfortunate incident, and I appreciate your patience and understanding.
Thanks
Aasim
Major Issues with this batch of drives
- Windows Identifies It as a Hitachi Drive (HUA728080ALN600)
- Seagate Exos should not show up as a Hitachi HUA728080ALN600 (which is an 8TB He10 drive).
- This suggests the firmware has been modified to spoof the identity.
- Different Firmware on Label vs. CrystalDiskInfo
- Label says SN01, but drive reports LBC4 in CrystalDiskInfo
- This is unusual; Exos drives generally don’t have mismatched firmware unless they’ve been flashed or tampered with.
- SMART Data & FARM Check Fails
- FARM data is not available – likely not a Seagate drive (or unsupported model).
- Real Seagate Exos drives should pass the Seagate FARM check regardless of smart data being reset or not, but this does not.
- This could mean it’s:
- A refurbished Hitachi drive with a fake Seagate label.
- A lower-capacity drive flashed to appear as 16TB.
How to Verify If the Drive Is Fake
Run a Full Capacity Test (H2testw or F3)
- Use H2testw (Windows) or F3 (Linux/macOS).
- If the drive is actually 8TB, the test will fail beyond that point.