Internal hard drives, buy in Thailand or from overseas (half price)?

[BritManToo]

Looking for a NAS internal hard drive,Seagate Ironwolf,  are the one from overseas all fake?

 

From overseas 5Kbht for 12TB

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/seagate-ironwolf-pro-12tb-st12000ne0008-nas-internal-hard-drive-hdd-35-inch-sata-6gbs-7200-rpm-256mb-cache-for-raid-network-attached-storage-i4576956685-s18678384644.html

 

Thai supplier selling imported drives 7Kbht for 12TB (1 year guarantee)

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/harddisk-hdd-nas-server-10tb-20tb-seagate-ironwolf-wd-red-toshiba-n300-wd-ultrastar-seagate-exos-i4178641965-s21220140787.html

 

Thai supplier 15Kbht for 12TB (5 year guarantee)

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/seagate-ironwolf-pro-12tb-7200rpm-256mb-sata-nas-hdd-st12000nt001-i1366858717-s3460580792.html

 

Anybody have any ideas on this?

[BigStar]

Sold out, but see similar items:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166339046176?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&customid=HFeBay&campid=5336641285&toolid=10001&mpt=9549240

 

[GammaGlobulin]

8 hours ago, BigStar said:

Sold out, but see similar items:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166339046176?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&siteid=0&customid=HFeBay&campid=5336641285&toolid=10001&mpt=9549240

 

 

Dynamite price.

 

[CanadaSam]

I bought two SSD's, 1 terrabyte each, from both Lazada and Shopee, price around 1000 baht each.

 

Both were fake.

 

Be careful!

[BenStark]

10 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Looking for a NAS internal hard drive,Seagate Ironwolf,  are the one from overseas all fake?

 

From overseas 5Kbht for 12TB

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/seagate-ironwolf-pro-12tb-st12000ne0008-nas-internal-hard-drive-hdd-35-inch-sata-6gbs-7200-rpm-256mb-cache-for-raid-network-attached-storage-i4576956685-s18678384644.html

 

Thai supplier selling imported drives 7Kbht for 12TB (1 year guarantee)

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/harddisk-hdd-nas-server-10tb-20tb-seagate-ironwolf-wd-red-toshiba-n300-wd-ultrastar-seagate-exos-i4178641965-s21220140787.html

 

Thai supplier 15Kbht for 12TB (5 year guarantee)

https://www.lazada.co.th/products/seagate-ironwolf-pro-12tb-7200rpm-256mb-sata-nas-hdd-st12000nt001-i1366858717-s3460580792.html

 

Anybody have any ideas on this?

 

Everything from HDD and SSD i have seen from china sellers on both Shopee and Lazada were fake.

 

I go through the reviews with images, and also the images in the listing, and all had plenty of evidence that they were fake

[OneMoreFarang]

I know Thai computer dealer have very small margins on products like HDDs.

I suggest buy they here from a reputable company, including warranty.

 

I am not sure if the following is still true, it was true a long time ago. At that time, I had a HDD which I bought in Europe when I was over there. It had a problem when I lived in Thailand, and I wanted to get it replaced on warranty. That was very difficult to do.

If you buy it from a reputable shop in Thailand, and even if the shop goes bankrupt, it's easy to replace it on warranty.

 

JIB is such a reputable shop, but obviously there are others. 

[Mutt Daeng]

When buying computer hardware on Lazada, I only buy from the Official Stores of big name vendors such as Advice, JIB, Banana etc. You do pay a little bit more but you are less likely to be scammed IMHO. 

[clokwise]

Yeah, as others mentioned, if you are going to buy HDD locally, only buy from JIB or Banana or other official vendors. You can buy from their official store on Lazada or directly at their brick and mortar store (same price). If you're gonna purchase from HD overseas, those ebay drives are refurbished - not new - and more importantly, no warranty. The last thing I personally would put in my NAS is a refurbished HD with no warranty. If you want the cheapest drive, with full 3 year warranty, just purchase from Amazon. You'll get free shipping (normally under 2 weeks). Price beats any legit Thailand price by a decent amount.

[sometimewoodworker]

23 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Looking for a NAS internal hard drive,Seagate Ironwolf,  are the one from overseas all fake?

Yes they are. Specially as Segate makes most of its hard drives in Thailand 

FWIW SWMBO started work in their factory when she was about 16~18

[KhunBENQ]

12 hours ago, CanadaSam said:

I bought two SSD's, 1 terrabyte each, from both Lazada and Shopee, price around 1000 baht each.

 

Both were fake.

 

Be careful!

A computer illiterate friend in Jomtien called me for help as his new external 1 TB HDD (3.5") could not be formatted (bought online somewhere...).

After looking at screenshot and head scratching I found that this c.ap identified as 10(!!) TB 😁

Price though was really good at 800 Baht. But for a paperweight too much.

I told him for his next shopping at Friendship to walk another 100 m to Advice and buy a working piece.

Edited January 5 by KhunBENQ

[BritManToo]

5 minutes ago, KhunBENQ said:

A computer illiterate friend in Jomtien called me for help as his new external 1 TB HDD (3.5") could not be formatted.

After looking at screenshot and head scratching I found that this c.ap identified as 10(!!) TB 😁

Price though was really good at 800 Baht. But for a paperweight too much.

I told him for his next shopping at Friendship to walk another 100 m to Advice and buy a working piece.

Having read all your comments, I pulled out an old 1TB drive from my Zyxel 2 bay NAS, and put it in my Synology DS223j 2 bay NAS.

Seems to work, and I've plugged a 4TB WD USB drive in the back.

[JBChiangRai]

All the cheap Hard Drives and high capacity thumb drives are fake.

 

You can write your data but not read it back, you can't format them either.

 

They have a chip in which pretends to be a high capacity, and until you try to format it, or retrieve bulk data you're oblivious.

[gargamon]

Buy from an official seller. I purchased a seagate 5tb portable drive for my portable NAS last year and subsequently dropped it making it worthless. North America seagate replaced it on warranty with no issues with it being purchased in Thailand. I'm sure if I had purchased it online at a discounted price.

 

You can check the serial number of your drive on seagate.com to see what the actual warranty for that drive is. 

[ed79]

I don't think they're fake, but are they genuinely new and unused?

 

I did some research on Ironwolfs being sold on Aliexpress last year.  Some of the reviews showed serial numbers and I was able to do a warranty check from Seagate.

 

Being as the Pro versions are supposed to come with 5 year warranty, the 3 drives I checked were all around 2 years into their 5 year warranty.

 

Possibly they've been sat on a shelf for 2 years, but then again maybe they've been running 24/7.   As they were pretty much half the official new price you have to suspicious I think.  I decided not to take a chance.

 

The 3 in the pictures here were warranty checked in June 2023...

 

 

[scottiejohn]

1 hour ago, ed79 said:

Being as the Pro versions are supposed to come with 5 year warranty, the 3 drives I checked were all around 2 years into their 5 year warranty.

 

Possibly they've been sat on a shelf for 2 years, but then again maybe they've been running 24/7. 

Doesn't the 5yr warranty period start when it is purchased by an end user customer and not when bought by a supplier/shop?

[gargamon]

26 minutes ago, scottiejohn said:

Doesn't the 5yr warranty period start when it is purchased by an end user customer and not when bought by a supplier/shop?

I believe Seagate uses manufacture date. You might be able to argue to get sale date if you have the docs. Be forewarned, dealing with Seagate customer support can be trying at best. 

[GammaGlobulin]

16 hours ago, CanadaSam said:

I bought two SSD's, 1 terrabyte each, from both Lazada and Shopee, price around 1000 baht each.

 

Both were fake.

 

Be careful!

Yes.

Nobody sells genuine 1 TByte SSd for Bt.1000

 

The price of RAM/MemoryChips is sort of a commodity, worldwide prices of RAM/Memory are what they are.

Edited January 5 by GammaGlobulin

[ed79]

I can't remember the exact wording form Seagate, but if you buy "retail" from an official supplier then the warranty is from purchase date as long as you can supply a receipt (maybe you even have to register to start the warranty online with them).

 

But the AliExpress / overseas suppliers would 100% be classed as OEM and these warranties start when Seagate supplies to the re-seller.

 

[freeworld]

33 minutes ago, gargamon said:

I believe Seagate uses manufacture date. You might be able to argue to get sale date if you have the docs. Be forewarned, dealing with Seagate customer support can be trying at best. 

I think you do not deal with seagate but with synnex or equivalent. If the drive has problems and you have the dated purchase receipt I'm sure they will honour the warranty.

 

I was interested in some usb drives, 128GB and 256GB and were priced at about 150baht. Suspicious of course but hundreds of the reviews for some bizarre reason mostly show 5 stars. I asked a question on the online platform website and received answers that the usb thumbdrives were fake.

 

Don't know how these companies are allowed to peddle fake branded goods on the well know online platform sites.

Edited January 5 by freeworld

[KhunBENQ]

5 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

All the cheap Hard Drives and high capacity thumb drives are fake.

And this happens unhindered since such devices exist.

First story was from a mate who bought a USB stick with some high capacity (at the time) and soon realized that his data gets lost. And that was in the 200x years.

[BritManToo]

Bought a 5TB WD usb drive from the WD official store for 3,700bht in the NY sale. That was about the best price I could find.

[BigStar]

5 hours ago, ed79 said:

I did some research on Ironwolfs being sold on Aliexpress last year.  Some of the reviews showed serial numbers and I was able to do a warranty check from Seagate.

 

Typically the product description states new or used. Consumers may prefer used for lower prices. We don't like used goods here and will scaremonger if given opportunity. But, if from a reputable, well-reviewed vendor, it's usually OK for non-mission critical applications. I have a couple of drives bought used that are fine for miscellaneous backups and data transport. SMART indicators good, power on hours reasonable, self-tests passed, capacity as advertised. I'm not worried. I'd buy one of the ebay drives if I needed that kind of capacity. In everyday use my drives always last longer than the warranty period, Seagate, WD, Toshiba, whatever. I believe it's because I keep them cool. But reddit has many tales of drives still humming along after 10 years.

[Lacessit]

Buy a HD from a bricks and mortar shop here, one can always go back to the shop if it is a dud.

Buy something on the internet, good luck getting a refund, even if the seller is still trading in the same name. Some change names like they change socks.

I only buy stuff on the internet where it's no big deal if things go wrong.

[sometimewoodworker]

8 hours ago, freeworld said:

I was interested in some usb drives, 128GB and 256GB and were priced at about 150baht. Suspicious of course but hundreds of the reviews for some bizarre reason mostly show 5 stars. I asked a question on the online platform website and received answers that the usb thumbdrives were fake.

While the ridiculously price USB drives may not actually be fake the write speed is extremely slow, slower even than floppy disk speeds.

[soi3eddie]

12 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Having read all your comments, I pulled out an old 1TB drive from my Zyxel 2 bay NAS, and put it in my Synology DS223j 2 bay NAS.

Seems to work, and I've plugged a 4TB WD USB drive in the back.

 

Synology DiskStations are great. As you have 2 bays it really is best to use 2 drives in the unit. You'll then be able to use the benefit of their Btrfs (similar to RAID array) and protect data in case one of the discs fails. I use mine at my UK place as a VPN for when in Thailand. Good as a back-up and for remote file storage retrieval. Previously used their included surveillance station for home CCTV. 

[Polar Bear]

I've had too many bad experiences with 'bargain' drives here. I only buy from JIB and InvadeIT now. I'm sure there are other reputable sellers, but those are the two I've never had a problem with. 

If you are interested, I also have 2 x Ironwolf 8TB NAS drives available since my last upgrade. Only one is still in warranty, though.

 

Be aware that Seagate warranties are region-specific. If it's not a Thai-registered drive, the warranty is pretty much worthless here. 

[BritManToo]

6 hours ago, soi3eddie said:

 

Synology DiskStations are great. As you have 2 bays it really is best to use 2 drives in the unit. You'll then be able to use the benefit of their Btrfs (similar to RAID array) and protect data in case one of the discs fails. I use mine at my UK place as a VPN for when in Thailand. Good as a back-up and for remote file storage retrieval. Previously used their included surveillance station for home CCTV. 

2 bays + 2 USB = 4 drives, I'll have 1TB internally and 10TB externally (once my new 5TB WD arrives)

[BigStar]

 

13 hours ago, Polar Bear said:

If you are interested, I also have 2 x Ironwolf 8TB NAS drives available since my last upgrade. Only one is still in warranty, though.

 

How old are they exactly? SMART indicators all good? Power on hours? Pass longer self-tests?

[BritManToo]

13 hours ago, Polar Bear said:

If you are interested, I also have 2 x Ironwolf 8TB NAS drives available since my last upgrade. Only one is still in warranty, though.

Price on each?

By PM if you prefer.

Edited January 6 by BritManToo

[Polar Bear]

Sorry, I don't have all the information on hand because I had no particular plan to sell them. I'll sell them for roughly half what a decent store is selling them new. Individually, the one in warranty (until Sept) will be a little more than half, the other a little less. One was manufactured 2019 the other 2021.  They were fine and passing all the tests when I took them out last year (July ish?). If I kept the results, and I can find them, I'll post them. But if someone is interested, I'll reinstall them and run it all again. Not till next week, though. The new semester starts on Monday and I am swamped right now.