Beware Newegg cheap (mfg) refurb HDDs.

[VirtualLarry]

I bought five 80GB WD HDDs, REFURB, from Newegg on ebay. I don't know if their ebay orders are packed by different people than their warehouse orders, but this was totally unacceptable.

They were shipped in a flat box, with all of the HDDs, in their anti-static sleeves, banging around against each other, wrapped loosely with bubble-wrap lining the bottom of the box.

WTF? What happened to those little "coffins" as I've heard them called, that Newegg advertised (they made a snazzy video) for shipping HDDs in. Were $9.99 shipped HDDs too cheap, to even manage to spare a piece of inflatable plastic, and cardboard?

Edit: Holly Sheet. I opened one of them, they aren't the 80GB WD 7200RPM HDDs that I ordered (or at least, matched the picture that I ordered), they are 80GB WD Raptor 10,000RPM HDDs. I don't know whether to be happy, or upset. The baggies were labeled 80GB 7200RPM, so these are mis-labeled, at the very least.

Comments on whether I got a deal ($10 for a 80GB Raptor), or if these were probably beaten hard, and will be loud in a consumer PC because they're 10K RPMs. (Then again, I can say that they have a Raptor HDD in them, could be a marketing bonus for the PCs I build with them.)

Edit: Two of them are not Raptor drives. So that makes three 80GB Raptors, and three 80GB "JD" drives, for $50. Hmph.

 

[Mushkins]

The thing about spinning disks is they're either damaged, or they're not.

Put 'em in a box and run some tests. If all is well keep them, if something's up call newegg and complain.

 

[Dahak]

Personally I would return them and get a refund for 2 reasons

1 - The main reason, you did not get what you were advertised (although its in your favor, except for speed and noise of the raptors that could be an issue)
2 - Packing, specifically improper packing. at Minimum, the drives should have been wrap themselves individually in bubblewrap

 

[NeweggSupport]

Hi VirtualLarry,

We're sorry to hear about the way the Hard Drives were packaged, and that you received the wrong items.

Please email us at wecare@newegg.com, and we'll be happy to help you with an RMA replacement and share this experience with our warehouse management teams.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you,
Julia - Newegg Support

 

[XavierMace]

Why would you buy 80Gb spindles at any price?

 

[Elixer]

They were shipped in a flat box, with all of the HDDs, in their anti-static sleeves, banging around against each other, wrapped loosely with bubble-wrap lining the bottom of the box.

WTF? What happened to those little "coffins" as I've heard them called, that Newegg advertised (they made a snazzy video) for shipping HDDs in. Were $9.99 shipped HDDs too cheap, to even manage to spare a piece of inflatable plastic, and cardboard?

That is a good question, from all the complaints about how terrible they shipped the HDs before, you would think they would have fixed everything by now.
This is really disappointing, and now, I am reconsidering all purchases from Newegg until we know that this was a one time thing.

 

[paul878]

I stopped buying Hard Drive from Newegg years ago for this reason. I am just dumbfounded that it is still happening.

 

[dlerious]

I bought 4 new WD blacks (2x2GB + 2x1GB) a couple months ago and they all came shipped in individual boxes with like a clamshell around the drives.

 

[master_shake_]

I bought 4 new WD blacks (2x2GB + 2x1GB) a couple months ago and they all came shipped in individual boxes with like a clamshell around the drives.

What year is it?!

 

[Elixer]

What year is it?!

Must have been those WD branded flash drives

 

[iluvdeal]

What type of warranty do you get with such drives?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I will state, that this is the first time that I've seen really poor packaging of HDDs from Newegg. I previously ordered ten 160GB drives, and they shipped them in an OEM 20-drive box with slots.

 

[dlerious]

What year is it?!

The 1TB are 24 Jan 2015. Made in Thailand
2TB are 15 March 2015 Made in Malaysia

 

[dlerious]

What type of warranty do you get with such drives?

5 years on the Blacks

 

[Erithan13]

I've seen something very similar done by an Amazon reseller, just go searching for 80GB drives and you'll find them soon enough. Offering new 'generic' drives at bargain prices but according to the reviews you'd get something almost at random. Some would seemingly be fine while others were clearly several years old and had been extensively used but wiped to appear new, probably some factory refurbs or returned drives in there too. Good luck trying to find out if you have any sort of warranty or even if you did if the seller would ever honour it. Might be someone got a haul of old laptops and decided to start salvaging bits and seeing if they could get away with selling the drives cheap. Chances are lots of the drives failed soon after but people wouldn't bother chasing them given the price they paid.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I finally got around to testing them.

First one tested was one of the 80GB 7200RPM WD drives. SMART showed zero reallocated sectors, so I did an NTFS full format, completed successfully, so all should have been good, right? So I checked SMART again, and there were a bunch of reallocated sectors that weren't there before. So I did a surface scan with HDTune, ugh, red blocks galore near the middle of the drive. So checked SMART, more pending sectors. Did an NTFS full format again, completed successfully, but now SMART showed so many bad sectors that CrystalDiskInfo labeled the drive as "BAD". Did another surface scan, more red blocks / pending sectors, decided to cut my losses and just label that one as "BAD".

Second one, another 7200RPM drive, wouldn't even spin up to the full 80GB size. Showed just under 6GB, for some reason, and made a lot of clicking noises. Got labeled immediately as "BAD".

Next three, the 80GB WD Raptor drives. Put each one through the gauntlet of a SMART check, HDTune surface scan, SMART check, NTFS full format, SMART check, HDTune surface scan, and a final SMART check. All passed with flying colors.

So, either the Raptor drives, with their heavier casing, survived transport much better banging around, or the 7200RPM drives were just crap to begin with.

Either way, I effectively paid $16.67 for each 80GB WD Raptor refurb drive. Not what I would call a bargain, but whatever. They weren't extremely noisy as I've heard reported.

 

[cbn]

Well, I finally got around to testing them.

First one tested was one of the 80GB 7200RPM WD drives. SMART showed zero reallocated sectors, so I did an NTFS full format, completed successfully, so all should have been good, right? So I checked SMART again, and there were a bunch of reallocated sectors that weren't there before. So I did a surface scan with HDTune, ugh, red blocks galore near the middle of the drive. So checked SMART, more pending sectors. Did an NTFS full format again, completed successfully, but now SMART showed so many bad sectors that CrystalDiskInfo labeled the drive as "BAD". Did another surface scan, more red blocks / pending sectors, decided to cut my losses and just label that one as "BAD".

Second one, another 7200RPM drive, wouldn't even spin up to the full 80GB size. Showed just under 6GB, for some reason, and made a lot of clicking noises. Got labeled immediately as "BAD".

Next three, the 80GB WD Raptor drives. Put each one through the gauntlet of a SMART check, HDTune surface scan, SMART check, NTFS full format, SMART check, HDTune surface scan, and a final SMART check. All passed with flying colors.

So, either the Raptor drives, with their heavier casing, survived transport much better banging around, or the 7200RPM drives were just crap to begin with.

Either way, I effectively paid $16.67 for each 80GB WD Raptor refurb drive. Not what I would call a bargain, but whatever. They weren't extremely noisy as I've heard reported.

Since you mentioned these 80GB Raptors had heavier casing I am guessing these were either 2nd generation (WD800GD) or 3rd generation (WD800ADFD, WD800ADFS) drives. Interesting that despite being 10,000 rpm they are quiet, but I guess with that thick casing they could be.

P.S. I have two used WD800JD drives (each with 40,000+ hours but no reallocated sectors)....you can have them if you want. I will ship for free. PM me if interested.

 

[nerp]

There are Newegg resellers selling "new" drives that are just pulls from old machines with 50,000 hours on them and the SMART data wiped. goHarddrive seems to be the worst offender. Amazon is just as bad. When I buy HDs, I make sure I'm only buying from Newegg or Amazon direct. So many scumbags out there. Why Newegg and Amazon allow these scammers to operate for so long with no repercussions and mountains of one star reviews indicating they bought "new" drives with 4 years of hard use on them.

 

[Coup27]

There are Newegg resellers selling "new" drives that are just pulls from old machines with 50,000 hours on them and the SMART data wiped. goHarddrive seems to be the worst offender. Amazon is just as bad. When I buy HDs, I make sure I'm only buying from Newegg or Amazon direct. So many scumbags out there. Why Newegg and Amazon allow these scammers to operate for so long with no repercussions and mountains of one star reviews indicating they bought "new" drives with 4 years of hard use on them.

Amazon don't seem to give a monkeys. The amount of fake stuff being sold by 3rd parties on Amazon is insane. Granted you're quick to get your money back but they should really be doing more. It's so bad now on eBay and Amazon sometimes I have to go direct to the manufacturer's official shop if I want something and I can't find it elsewhere.