Samsung SATA drives

[Curious.George]

We have a donor who wants to recycle ~2700 seats. We can find homes for the machines but our contact indicates there are ~2500 disks in cardboard boxes (50 boxes of 50) alongside the machines -- which he claims STILL have their disks inside.

I suspect this is not the case -- that the disks have been pulled and placed into boxes alongside the machines (which now are "empty"). But, he was insistent that these are extra disks -- beyond the disks present in the machines.

This would pose a logistical problem for us -- no use for all those extra disks. They would have to have some particular worth to justify the effort of cleaning and storing them.

They are apparently all Samsung ~300GB 3.5" SATA drives (I don't have a model number, yet). But, Samsung doesn't strike me as a particular "quality" product (when it comes to disks).

Any first-hand experience with their storage products? I'd be tempted just to send them off to the shredder as scrap...

[dmill89]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

Seagate bought Samsung's HDD division in 2011 so anything 2011 and newer is likely a re-branded Seagate. As for pre-2011 drives, I've never heard of Samsung drives being related as exceptionally reliable (I think in most "statistical studies" they were about average, pretty much in the middle of the pack neither exceptionally good or exceptionally bad), though in my personal experience and of friends/relatives that have had Samsung drives I've never seen a failure. Personally Seagate and Maxtor (which Seagate also now owns) are the only HDD brands I've had failures from (but of course that is just antidotal).

[Curious.George]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

Seagate bought Samsung's HDD division in 2011 so anything 2011 and newer is likely a re-branded Seagate.

So, if these truly are "additional drives", they may have been the drives that were previously installed in some machines they had -- perhaps not even the machines that we are being asked to recycle (?) -- and pulled when THOSE machines were scrapped...

As for pre-2011 drives, I've never heard of Samsung drives being related as exceptionally reliable (I think in most "statistical studies" they were about average, pretty much in the middle of the pack neither exceptionally good or exceptionally bad), though in my personal experience and of friends/relatives that have had Samsung drives I've never seen a failure.

My concern is the effort that will be required to clean the drives -- esp if we won't really have any use for them (i.e., if the machines each have drives inside, then these just represent "extra work" with no real value to us beyond scrap metal). We're just finishing the batch of 800 that were dropped off LAST week.

[Huge local increase in entropy! ]

And, if they are packaged in boxes of 50, that suggests the boxes are probably above our maximum weight limit (we don't want anyone hurting themselves by lifting more than ~70 pounds -- 50 disks would probably be closer to 80 pounds). Its easy to see someone unloading a pallet of 50 such boxes and hurting themselves along the way.

So, it may be easier to just take the whole pallet and have it shredded (or, refuse to accept it in the first place!)

Personally Seagate and Maxtor (which Seagate also now owns) are the only HDD brands I've had failures from (but of course that is just antidotal).

<touch wood> I've only lost two disks in my career. One a laptop drive that got tired of being spun up and down every 15 minutes (24/7/365) until it refused that final request. The other suffered some sort of boot sector damage which made it essentially useless (but didn't result in any data loss)

[R_J]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

If I was closer I would take a box or two off your hands, even at 100lb each

[diif]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

From experience the early Samsung drivers were reliable.

Stand the drives on end and set them up like a Domino Rally ?

[Curious.George]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

If I was closer I would take a box or two off your hands, even at 100lb each

If we take possession of them, we can't "dispose" of them until the data they may contain has been rendered irrecoverable. If we put them in computers (i.e., computers that don't HAVE disks!), then we wipe them first. Ditto if we opted to sell them.

So, if, as I suspect, the computers already have disks in them and these are superfluous, the easiest way for us to render them safe is to destroy them, in bulk. I'd not want to do that if they had some particular "value".

The safest bet may be to recommend another agency for the disposition of just the disks (lots of people process surplus electronics -- though not all reputably!).

[Topcat]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

I'd take a box full of them as well.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

It's a possibility they are 7200.11 series.
That would explain why they have extra drives:
They might have been sent them as replacement drives for the issues those series had:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...264#post106264

[Curious.George]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

It's a possibility they are 7200.11 series.
That would explain why they have extra drives:
They might have been sent them as replacement drives for the issues those series had:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...264#post106264

No idea. I recommended against taking on the job of processing them (there are many other places in town that can do this; let them deal with it!)

It's a lot of work (we have limited resources) for very little "return" -- disks tend to sell for a dollar or two. And then folks will piss and moan if it fails in a month and they'll expect a refund (you want a warranty? Pay full price at a regular retail outlet)! sheesh! Maybe we need to add a non-refundable transaction fee?? )

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Samsung SATA drives

7200.11 is the KZG of Seagate Barracudas!