12TB Seagate Exos X16 3.5" 7200RPM SATA Internal Hard Drive (Mfr. Recertified) Expired

I bought a couple drives from them recently, including this 12TB Seagate Exos X16. The packaging was among the best I've ever seen. The HD was in a sealed anti-static bag, surrounded by bubble wrap, in a box, surrounded by bubble wrap, in another box. The drive was physically immaculate, no dust, scratches, or scuffs. The manufacture date was August 2020. I'm not sure if that's when it was originally manufactured or recertified. After the SMART data had been reset, it had been run just enough to perform one full read scan (which takes close to a day). For those wanting to test the drive, I recommend HDDScan (for Windows). CrystalDiskInfo does not run any diagnostics itself. It merely displays the SMART info from the drive.

The drive works but I have some concerns, as it sometimes seems to take a few tries to calibrate when powering up. The other Exos (an X18) always gets it right on the first try. The drive performs well, with sequential reads/writes around 250MB/s peak. Random 4K reads are about 0.8MB/s, not exactly spectacular. On the other hand, Random 4K writes are over 13MB/s, faster than any other HD I've seen. As far as noise, it seems about the same as the WD/HGST helium drives.

Mine came with outdated firmware. You can get the update from Seagate's site by putting in your serial number. The download takes forever because it's close to dial-up speeds. It comes with a cross-platform command-line utility. I booted to a live Linux session to do the update. Instructions are included. Be careful, the commands are case-sensitive.

This drive has TLER (Time-Limited Error Recovery) which is usually intended for RAID setups. I think it's probably fine to leave this enabled, even when used on its own. The default timer appears to be 10 seconds. If the drive can't sort things out in that period, I doubt more time is going to make much of a difference. You can disable (or adjust) it with smartmontools (also included with GSmartControl). However, the setting must be reapplied after every power cycle. Here is the command:

smartctl -l scterc,0,0 /dev/sdX (Replace sdX with the designation of your drive. Also, this IS case-sensitive.)

This drive does not support conventional APM (Advanced Power Management). However, it does have power-saving features. It has multiple modes, including one that parks the heads and another that reduces the spindle speed. These are enabled by default and too aggressive for my tastes. You can use the SeaChest utility to adjust or disable these. Here are the commands for the Windows version:

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -s

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -d PDx --showEPCSettings

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -d PDx --EPCfeature disable

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -d PDx --powerBalanceFeature info

SeaChest_PowerControl_x64_windows -d PDx --powerBalanceFeature disable

Use the first command to determine the "handle" of your drive. For the subsequent commands, replace the "PDx" with your drive's handle. The second and forth commands display the current status of those features. The third and fifth commands disable the respective features. These settings DO appear to persist through power cycles.

For anyone wondering, the Exos X18 I got from them had a manufacture date less than six months ago. It had 0 power-on hours and obviously had NOT been tested after the SMART data was reset. Its firmware is up to date and I have not noticed any issue with it yet.

Looks like the X18's are $5 more
https://serverpartdeals.com/produ...hard-drive

In a home scenario, basically none.
x18 is slightly faster, but also uses slightly more power. In a home setting in a NAS, the speed benefit won't be realized in any real world situation.