The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/LeviAEthan512 on 2024-12-11 18:49:33.
I've always been a data hoarder at heart, but I'm only now starting to do it properly, with an organised set up.
I just ordered a couple of Ironwolf Pro drives at a massive discount, but it's in too good to be true territory. Like $150 for 12TB. And it's definitely Pro, I even checked the SKU.
I know of those drives (also batteries) that advertise a capacity more than what they actually have. I was and am wary of this, but some research alleviated my fears enough to order, but not enough to sit quietly without complaining lol.
The store I bought from seems to be reputable. According to this post at least. It's Greeno. I'm Singaporean, not Filipino, but we have Lazada here, too. There are differences, but this shop in SG has good reviews. Literally the only suspicious thing is the price. It passes all other checks.
When the drives arrive, I'll check the serial number with Seagate and the SMART data of course. They (the store) promises a refund if the products are found to not be genuine, which is nice. And I trust the platform's QA/refund system.
But about total capacity, I haven't been able to find any way to verify besides actually filling it with 12TB of whatever data. Thing is, I don't have that much data. I guess I could paste multiple copies of my Steam library for example, but that sounds tedious and my layman ass doesn't know if it's impossible for the drive to recognise that it's duplicate data and link them together. Also, if like 10% of files are faked/corrupted, it could potentially take a really long time to click on stuff until something fails, not to mention it's basically proving a negative.
I know of using Window's own disk management or diskpart to make volumes, and as a second test, I've heard GSmartControl is good. Are these 100% reliable, or should I really scrounging together data to go the manual route?
If you're curious, this is the exact one I bought. Only 3 ratings, but the store has a ton, including this, which is basically the same. The only difference I can see is if the warranty comes from the local distro or... seemingly Seagate's own international office. I went with the local one because it sounds like less of a hassle. Different companies do international warranty differently, but I've had some that require you ship it to their global HQ.