Woke up to failed RAID drive

Playground Hardware
#1

Today is very sad morning.

I purchased 2 EXOS 16TB refurbished drived on amazon from seller "tech on tech". Both passed smart test.

Last night had a bad thunderstorm. Lost power about 5 minutes.

I just ordered another drive to replace it. But until then my server is unusable, i unplugged it. I dont want any further damage. On plus side since its raid my data will be recovered.

So. . . I talked with Amazon. She contacted seller. They said i have to wait 48hrs for seller to respond before she can intervene.

In my impatience I already ordered a 16TB exos hard drive. That way i can get unit up and going faster.

So we will see how this return goes. I am not to worried about seller. Ive had experience with Amazon forcing returns that a 3rd party seller denied.

Lesson. . . All things break. Refurbished is a roll of dice. But with a 30% savings over new at the time. I don't regret ordering refurb. Its a risk.

#2

This, is why one invests in a good UPS.

#3

Its plugged into APC battery backup. But i relized this a.m. that it was on surge protector only side and not the ups side (has plugs for both). Plug must of gotten moved at some point and i didnt relize/remember.

But anyway. My purchased hdd should arrive tomorrow before 8pm.

Now im just waiting on response from seller for warrenty.

#4

Warranty wont cover failure due to power spike/surge etc. If you told them that how it failed...then most likely be rejected. But who know, maybe they will be cool. Also, refurbs often have very short warranty period, 30 or 60 days, or 90 days if lucky

#5

I did not mention storm / power outage.

I have a few options

  1. Seller warrenty. Tech by Tech advertises 2year on product. Has good reviews and been selling on amzn for multiple years. Im guessing odds 60%

  2. seller refuses to honor warrenty. Keep escalating with amazon until amazon refunds. Ive gone down this path with amazon on other products. Sometimes i win, sometimes not. Guessing my odds 25%

  3. drive is suppossed to be warrentied for seagate for 3 year manufacturer. Since its enterprise drive, i can attempt that route. Each drive has a uniquie seriel number device id. Im guessing my odds 5% or less.

Ill attempt warrenty. Regardless i purchased 2 more 16TB hard drives. So im all good regardless. But waking up to your NAS beeping at you is scary.

#6

If you don't already have a smart UPS for your server, I'd recommend that you look into one that can do a controlled shutdown. It will save you from power outage hassles in the future.

#7

Ill look into upgrading my UPS. In meantime i will make sure its on battery backup plug instead of surge protectir only plug.

Update on warrenty

Seller tells me to contact seagate. Drive is warrentied until 2025

Seagate tells me to go through seller. Drive is not warrentied by them.

Seller tells me to go through seagate... again.

I have now escalted issue to amazon. Started with online chat. A phone representative has now reached out to me. I have explained to amazon.

Amazon emailed seller directly asking him to provide warranty. Seller responded telling me to contact seagate.

I contacted amazon. Sent them screenshots of conversation with seller. Amazon said i have to wait 48hrs. If seller refused to exchange or refund item. Amazon will ban the seller and provide me a refund directly.

Ill update in 2 days. But this is why i buy from amazon. They might be evil and destroying world. But their customer service and returns are on point. Even for 3rd party sellers.

#8

Wait, the drive failed because of your action/inaction (read: entirely your fault) and now you're trying to get the drive replaced for free (actually costing the seller even more to get it to you basically destroying the razor thin margin) and then you push it to Amazon to get the seller banned because you can't take responsibility for something entirely your fault??

You mucked up, suck it up and learn your lesson. Refurb drives are great, I personally stick with HGST but in general it's hard to damage spinning rust when you properly take care of them.

What exactly were you hoping to accomplish with this post?

#9
  1. plugged into surge supressor. Thougj not on battery backuo
  2. warrenty does not exclude power surge
  3. never asked if there was a storm/surge
  4. i did not ask to ban seller. Thats amazons idea
  5. the drive failure is bad sectors.
  6. warranty does not exclude power surge nor was i asked
  7. if the warrenty said power surge or if they asked i would agree
  8. my conscience is clean.

I install circuit boards on appliances all the time. Go out and find black burn marks on part after lightning storm. Guess what, still warrenty them.

#10

Thanks, I've contacted Tech On Tech and provided a screenshot of this thread.

#11

Good for you.

The warranty does not exclude power surge norvwas i adked. So im fine

#12

Do you know what the actual drive "fault" is? Your server SMART report should be able tell you. It may be just a bad block ... your server might be able to rebuild the data on the drive since it's in a RAID array. How many drives are in your array?

#13

Yes its raid. I will rebuild data tomorow when new drive arrives.

As far as failure. The failure is increase in number of bad sectors. Screenshots of SMART where sent to amazon and seller.

I took drive offline.

Faults
Reported_uncorrected
Current_pending_sector
Offline_uncorrectable

#14

Refurbed drives are prone to have bad blocks. That's probably why they were taken out of service in the first place. You can "fix" a drive with bad sectors by rebuilding the data on the drive. If there are only a few bad blocks, the drive reallocates the data and marks the bad sectors so they won't be used again. The drive will operate "normally" once the data is moved. But you should monitor the drive to make sure that more bad sectors don't start popping up. When that happens, it's really time to replace the drive.

#15

In october ran full smart scan and full block scan on NAS when drive purchased. Then rescanned all drives once more early this year after i added another drive.

So these are new and not old bad sectors.

Either way. Im not trusting the drive and i have already ordered 2 more 16tb exos to replace this one failed exos.

#16

I've had good experience with Tech by Tech replacements. I am wondering why you have gone offline as you still have a good drive in your array. Most people don't run RAID for channels or other DVRs. You are I are not most people.

Good luck!

#17

I have purchased a total of 4 drives from tech by tech in past. 2 more on way to make 6. Always good buying experience

I took NAS offline in panic mode yesterday. Did I have to, no. But i did.

I will rate tech bybtech selling experience 5star. Always good. I will rate his customer service as 1 star. His customer service is what caused me to escalate. Every reply he sent was "contact seagate". Despite screenshot from seagate saying drive has no manufacturer warrenty. Had he just delt with me directly, it would of not been escalated to Amazon tech chat. Which then prompted a Amazon phone person to contact me in a phone call, note, I did not ask Amazon to call me on phone.

I do believe he legitimately test his drives before selling. All 4 drives i recieved in past all passed SMART scan and bad block scan. I dont believe him to be a scammer. But his.