valuable information in getting replacement drive, need to be more vigilant nowadays

seller im now trying says he is based in bukit jalil. is a pre order, not sure where he sources his hdds from. but he was clear they r oem with a 4 year store warranty. meaning, u cant directly claim warranty from seagate because they r oem, thats y.

i sus is from china, but if it checks out its original and the farm isnt tampered with, ill report back. but from the reviews seems there shouldnt be an issue, will see. its RM 1200 vs RM 500-700

but the rm 700 drives r those scam second hand that have a 4 year already used drive (probably heavily using chia mining).

maybe can get cheaper than 1.2k but i donno where. u have to take into account if u can claim warranty or not and if its original (unused).

If ordering overseas especially, check first if warranty can be claimed or not. last time ordered ebay, there was a country restriction for warranty



if anyone ever want to do the legit seagate warranty (not these oems), i tested both the free collection and the self drop off point. free collection they send a huge truck to come collect for free. OR, u drive to the collection point to drop off the drive. Make sure u do the online warranty forms and print out the packaging slip and everything before sending the hdds packed of course. for good measure i stuff a screenshot printed of the drive in bad condition as reported in smart and truenas, just in case. The seagate warranty replacement is simple, but they r strict to only replace hdds bought from their validated resellers (hence y u must check, if u ever plan to claim warranty from seagate).



for price listing got this
https://diskprices.com/?locale=us&condition...dd,internal_hdd


for the seagate exos x18 12tb its listed as $329 usd. Thats about 1.4k i think its a 5 year warranty? not sure.


If u see seagate exos X12, STAY AWAY. they have known reliability issues. there is a reason why u see exo X12 selling cheaper
https://www.servethehome.com/backblaze-2021...-st12000nm0007/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/commen...t_12tb_seagate/


havent heard anything bad about X18 (its not the newest exos but its cheaper than the latest iteration of it, AND it doesnt have the dark history thats pegged to the X12)


*update

i see western digital has this on amazon



Western Digital 12TB WD Red Pro NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 7200 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 512 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD122KFBX
$299.99
$15.57 Import Fees Deposit & FREE Shipping to Malaysia

roughly about rm 1,356. how to claim warranty for WD and ordered off amazon? no idea (plz share if u have experience for this)

its slightly more expensive than the seagate Exos X18 12tb, but it has 5 year warranty, AND 512mb cache vs 256mb cache.



https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/...provide_better/




the drive i am getting is the ST18000NM000J. But for the same drive there is a ST18000NM001J. So what is the difference? Go to the seagate datasheet and see the comparison there

https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/d...102US-en_US.pdf



the main difference is the ST18000NM001J has SED Model FastFormat (self encryption device) and the ST18000NM000J has Standard Model FastFormat. thats the only difference.

explanation what SED is

https://www.seagate.com/blog/what-are-self-...rypting-drives/

https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/...ware_encrypted/

https://www.reddit.com/r/truenas/comments/1...d_drives_in_tn/




for encryption, i typically use the one in truenas where u can encrypt specific datasets rather than all datasets (cause the encrypted dataset will have a performance penalty). this works fine for me




if u check amazon also, there is a amazon renewed store (is it official seagate? no idea)

Seagate IronWolf ST12000VN0007 12 TB 3.5 Internal Hard Drive - SATA - 7200rpm - 256 MB Buffer (Renewed)

$189.99

i think renewed would suffice for a backup hdd (still has to come from a reliable source with some sort of warranty 2 years or more). not running 24/7, just for the occasional backup.






*update

someone reported this curated pc shop as scam. based on their experience i would have to agree something is dodgy about the store
https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...ost&p=112070035




This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Aug 28 2025, 05:10 AM

one nice thing about unraid is that it’s not picky with hard drives. most of mine are smr ones i got cheap from amazon japan. like rm 4XX to 5XX for a brand new 8tb, as long as you don’t care about warranty. after covid, prices kept going up, reeaching over 600, and for some reason, fewer sellers are shipping here now.

the last drive i bought was exos x16 refurb from taobao for under 600. smart data was wiped, but i’m not too bothered as long as it passes the unraid preclear without errors. some people on the unraid forum run up to five passes, but for me, since most of my drives just for media storage and i’ve got two parity drives, i figure one clean pass should be enough.

unraid is good for mix matching drives. if not mistaken, typically if u mix match say for example 4tb, 12tb, 6tb 2tb hdd, it will cap the drive capacity for all drives to the lowest, in this case 2tb.

but for unraid it wont do that and u get all available storage capacity for their raid solution if not mistaken?


One thing though is the pricing

https://unraid.net/pricing

$49 annual updates (meaning u have to renew every year)

lifetime is $249


so if u insist on unraid, i suggest u go with the unlimited license.


Sad thing is, the price for the lifetime was cheaper then later they hiked the price by a lot. so that boat sailed


Then we come back to the dilemma, truenas cost u nothing, and is good. So do you really need unraid (there is nothing wrong for them charging as they do. people have to be paid to dev their os and do the patches. but when the alternative competitor is free and just as good, well...) ? for me no. for u? thats for u to answer.

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: May 12 2025, 04:12 AM

ya, with unraid, you just assign your largest disk as the parity drive, and then you’re free to use the full capacity of all the remaining drives.

back in 2022, the basic license cost $59, and later they offered an upgrade to pro (lifetime) for $79, with a 30% discount. so, i ended up paying $59 + $55.30 = $114.30 for a lifetime license. after the pricing changes, they grandfathered existing pro users, meaning my license still gets all future upgrades. it really depends on how you look at it. for someone new to nas, $249 might feel like a big upfront cost. however, for someone who's been using nas systems for a while or is trying to build a relatively cost-effective (hardware), power-saving nas, they might see $249 as roughly the cost of a single hard drive.

before i go further, i just want to say zfs is hands down the best file system out there. i have some backups i wish were on zfs so i could benefit from features like deduplication, self-healing, snapshots, and blazing fast read/write speeds. that said, you also have to ask: do you really need all those features? because they do come with some overhead.

unraid, on the other hand, can run on very modest hardware. even old cpus like core 2 duo or amd athlon/phenom chips from 16–17 years ago, with minimal ram, will work. zfs, by comparison, typically recommends a modern cpu and around 1gb of ram per TB of storage,especially if you plan to enable deduplication. also, avoid smr drives, or the resilvering process might take weeks due to their slower random write speeds.

another thing i love about unraid is the drive spin-down feature. for example, let’s say i have my media collection spread across 30 hard drives, and i’m watching lotr trilogy (about 9 hours long). only the drive containing the movie spins up and the other 29 drives stay idle, saving both power and wear.

and finally, there’s the ease of expansion. you can add drives of any size, at any time, as your media collection grows. no need to rebuild the entire array.

in my opinion, unraid is a solid choice for media storage. if you're dealing with enterprise or mission-critical data, though, truenas with zfs is the way to go. for most people who just need to back up personal media, synology is a great option. their interface is super user-friendly, and it's really easy to access, share, and back up your data, whether on a pc or through their mobile app.

some people complained zfs doesnt let u expand drives. e.g. put in a new drive to expand storage. but i think in a truenas update since electric eel? they added the expand drive feature (after waiting for it for many years). i havent yet tested it myself yet.

also they say zfs is slower than mdadm ext4 linux raid. but from my usage it works fine. even 10gbe testing i got a decent enough result.

zfs is the way to go

Synology is becoming scummy. Forcing u to buying THEIR hdds.





https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/...ology_on_using/


This is the stupidest move they could have done guess their synology branded hard drives werent selling too well, so out of desperation they went the scummy route to force sales. They forgot 1 thing though. They aint all that. People can cut them out to escape from the synology eco system and move elsewhere that dont stiffle their choices (especially hard drives)



Just go truenas (free) OR unraid (paid license, annual or perpetual). U can thank me later


ive used truenas with a qnap before. But in the end i went for 2 truenas because it works better when using their backup/restore when both nas is truenas. Not saying u cant do it with a NON truenas. But it makes things easier.


if u r wondering about apps, truenas docker integration is not hard. with a few clicks u can get some apps installed with a web url interface to access.

OR, you can go further, and install dockge (or portainer), then install docker apps via docker compose, and tinker with all that to do more intricate setups for apps. U can get apps direct from the github projects rather than wait on synology/qnap etc to repackage them to work on their platforms Docker is the way to go.

if ur too lazy to manual update, just install watchtowerr to auto update. Some apps do break and require manual update for docker compose if there r big changes. But most often, auto update just works fine without manual intervention.

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: May 14 2025, 07:08 AM

just received my seagate exos x18 12tb oem hard drive

tested seems to be legit brand new



price about Rm1200 on shopee. Preorder, takes about 2 weeks to arrive.

OEM drive 4 year STORE warranty. I checked seagate website, no warranty from seagate, but that is not an issue since it was crystal clear that seagate does not do warranty for OEM drives.

What is important is that

1. its confirm brand new (i compare farm and smart power on hours, they match which is almost 0 hours power on)
2. seller seems active, knows proper english, based in bukit jalil (local), and responds to enquiries well.
3. has a 4 year warranty (if u buy from seagate non oem, i think the warranty is only 5 year. if u buy a ironwolf non pro warranty is just 3 year. so really not an issue. Just hope that if u do need to claim warranty, is reliable. Dont know cause i havent had to yet)

u feel u cant trust, u can just go order on amazon and get a seagate ironwolf non pro with a 3 year warranty from the seagate store (they do shipping to malaysia for about the same price. but i recommend u ask seller if warranty will be supported if u claim from malaysia or not. i assume it will but u best ask first)/

If u want this exos drive specifically from a seagate authorized seller, non oem, then expect to pay more. Also the one i have is X18. Exos now has newer X number, so those cost more. But i havent heard any particular issues for X18.

I check what are the difference, i think only that newer X may have more cache like 512mb whereas this 12tb X18 only has 256mb cache. Thats the main difference i found. When you see the read/write performance, they are more or less the same

What you should not buy is the exos X12. Those have bad failure rates.

they also had ironwolf pro for same price as the exos x18. 3 vs 4 year warranty though. so i went with longer warranty

https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/...s_ironwolf_pro/







*update

checking my new hard drive. will take a few days or a week not sure. just want to be 100% sure its good



Do not run this command without reading what it does
https://forums.truenas.com/t/mooglestiltzki...-2024/22912/161


anyway this test will stress test every single block to ensure its all good. takes a long time to do and many passes, but will give u a very conclusive result whether drive is good or gonna die sometime soon.

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: May 23 2025, 02:14 PM

findings so far

- confirm new drive on hours smart and farm both 0

- bad block scan and smart tests both came out fine.




- is not the latest exos. is a X18 but thats fine. I had verified this first with seller before i bought it (a different seller tried to bait switch by swapping in a X12 sneakily ) Unlike the X12 i did not hear any issues about higher than normal failure rates. The newer X exo models they may have bigger capacity sizes, more cache, and probably some other changes not sure what. But for me what mattered is the X18 has no stand out issues, has the capacity size i need, is rated for 24/7, is brand new (0 power on hours when i received them. verified), and has a decent enough warranty period (4 years store warranty)


- warranty remains untested. Can only test if ever need to claim warranty. warranty period is store warranty and 4 years. (for non oem drive warranty from seagate for this drive model is 5 years. seagate typically will send recertified drive as replacements, how do i know this? cause ive done it before. but how does this particular store handle warranty replacements? recertified? second hand? new drive? no idea....


conclusion

- legit seller (finally)

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: May 30 2025, 06:14 AM

Can provide the seller link?

https://shopee.com.my/-OEM-S-BRAND-EXOS-4TB...772.26473172135

Curated PC shop



he has a few different types of hard drives (so you can check his store, he has more than this). he clearly labels as NEW or USED. and also how long is the warranty (ITS all store warranty afaik). And he will explicitly tell u if its OEM or not.

If not sure, ALWAYS ask. So u got proof if later got disputes.

I dont know how reliable is the warranty replacement. U never know till u have to use it. My PREVIOUS seller, their warranty TOTALLY USELESS. they fed me a story to make me wait 2 months (NOTHING HAPPENED). Basically was a CON. So i had to go to shopee and complain and this took a while BEFORE i got a full refund. The scammer seller was counting on me giving up. This was a DIFFERENT seller, than the drive i just bought.

But so far, i can tell u this 1 seagate exos X18 12tb i bought is confirm brand new (smart and farm power on hours was 0 when i first checked). I did the bad block scan which took many days to complete, as well as smart short and long. The drive came out all good.




Only thing unsure is if warranty any good or not (do u get a replacement? and if u do, is it brand new or used? recertified? dont know. But i can tell u when i got a replacement from seagate for a NON oem drive, they send me a recertified hard drive)

But the seller seems to be a local (claims to be based over at bukit jalil, not sure if he has an actual store, but u can ask), speaks english, responds actively, and seems to answer your questions well. I even asked if the exos he sell is X18 and he confirmed, and i also confirmed on my end as well. Trust worthy so far.

but i only bought 1 drive so far to test the waters first, seems ok for now.


The price for the Seagate exos X18 brand new with 4 year store warranty was roughly the same price as a Seagate ironwolf non pro 12tb (3 year warranty) from amazon. So i settled on buying from him because of that. I also recommend, if u order e.g. seagate exos, ASK if u r getting a X18 or something else. If they offer X12 SAY NO. My point is, CONFIRM with seller which exos u r getting BEFORE buying. Otherwise u cannot dispute later if u get a bad exos. He does have a newer EXOS X version, but that one cost way more. So i opted with the cheaper X18
https://www.servethehome.com/backblaze-2021...-st12000nm0007/



another thing to keep in mind, these are PRE-ORDERS. so there is a slight delay for getting the drive. I think for me it took 2 weeks? cant remember exactly how long it took but less than a month. Dont know where he sources his drives from, but feels like a drop ship type of situation (buy from somewhere else then mark up price). But the drive is reasonably priced and its indeed brand new, so whatever





*update

scrutiny did not like the seagate exos X12 drives. they failed the scrutiny test. But when u disable scrutiny metrics, smart comes out fine.

But it's interesting to note that scrutiny considered X18 pass. I think the reason the X12 failed by scrutiny is because of the backblaze failure rate data, so scrutiny uses that to consider the X12 as likely to fail is what i suspect.

My solution to this was simply disable the scrutiny metric and solely rely on smart. All drives passed for smart, so i am relying on that to know if drive is bad or gonna die. That said, i would not recommend EXOS X12 to anyone. X18 seems fine.

Just thought i would share that






*update

someone reported this curated pc shop as scam. based on their experience i would have to agree something is dodgy about the store
https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...ost&p=112070035


This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Aug 28 2025, 05:11 AM

Ooo, i must warn that when i put this hard drive into my truenas, i could not replace the drive because of a mismatch in capacity sizes.

this is how u typically replace a bad drive in truenas. i could not do it using this method as i had to redo the pool from scratch unfortunately




It is 12tb, BUT, there is a very minor discrepancy which truenas did not like. So because of that, it wouldnt allow a drive replacement.

new drive (seagate exos X18 12tb)


old drives (seagate exos X12 12tb)




So what i had to do was destroy the pool and redo it from scratch (obviously i had a backup BEFORE i did this ). Then i had to MANUALLY add the drives.

Truenas warns not to mix match different drive capacities (just ignored that), then created the raid1 4x 12tb. This worked.



But i imagine that in the future, if a drive fails and i have to replace, will it nag that capacity size mismatch? probably. So i would most likely have to rebuild the pool from scratch again rather than simply replace the drive and resilver.

For me this isn't that big an issue though it is annoying. May be different for you. Just thought i should mention, there was a slight capacity size difference between the seagate X12 and X18 for EXOS for the 12tb capacity. Why is that the case? i have no clue.


truenas forum they noted down this issue if you are curious

ezfs-baddev-cannot-replace-device-is-too-small
https://forums.truenas.com/t/ezfs-baddev-ca...o-small/11959/1

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Jun 3 2025, 06:07 PM

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/...spill-the-beans


So the used HDD repurposed and some even relabeled is not all from China. Local syndicate also involved.

yeah that's worried



Seagate-and-kpdn-take-down-counterfeiting-hard-disk-workshop-outside-kuala-lumpur

https://mariushosting.com/synology-third-pa...-in-the-future/

Hard to say if this can be seen as confirmation from Synology that it will reverse decision and allow use of third party hard drives again. If it is, it's a win for consumer and for Synology too.

their reputation already in the gutter.





better go truenas













yeah their prebuilt truenas systems are pricey, but there is no issue building a diy truenas build with hardware based on own budget. it also comes cheaper than buying prebuilts like synology brand.

even if you donno how to assemble yourself, you buy the parts from a truenas build recommendation for your budget, then send to pc shop to assemble for you.

install truenas os not particularly difficulty. flash onto usb drive, then install it.


for apps on truenas, they use docker. its very easy to install apps with a few clicks. then you get a web ui link to access those apps. though i still recommend properly learning how to do deploy docker containers so you have full mastery over it.



so honestly, do not reward synology's bad behavior. You dont need them. THEY NEED US, the customer. But that boat sailed with them getting all high and mighty by throwing their customer base under the bus. I only support truenas cause it's what i use, it's free, and it's great for DIY NAS builds that save you money. AND it uses ZFS which in 2025 is rock stable and good performance (everyone before was always complaining, but zfs is not performant enough. Well it's fine in 2025). if you want to get fancy you can layer truenas under proxmox so you can run more than just truenas if you wish to maximize the usage of your hardware. For normal users, baremetal truenas is sufficient.

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Sep 26 2025, 08:58 AM

I wanted to highlight one critical issue for NAS users





SHAI-HULUD worm

sauce

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/secur...7-npm-packages/

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/202...g-npm-ecosystem



basically what happened, a github repo got hacked, and malware was added. The thing they infected was something java related that other projects use.

E.G. the popular NPM (nginx proxy manager)

So imagine, if your NAS has a NPM with AUTO UPDATE, then you update, but this infected file gets on your nas. then it infects your nas, then the attacker will add more payloads from that initial entry point.

Also that malware looks for credentials then sends it all back to the attacker FYI.


My point here is, this is a risk facing nas home labbers. Where hackers CAN hack into a popular github repo, infect a file, then this cross infects OTHER popular projects that use them, which then gets ONTO a NAS, then the user has an infection without knowing how.

Just a case study warning for homelabbers.

This is why setting the permissions for containers is very important. for example, ever wonder why they say never give your docker containers root access. this is why. cause that is handing the keys to the kingdom on a silver platter so when earlier i advised nubs to master their truenas, it was to learn how to properly lock down your nas to mitigate issues like this from happening.


so you may be asking, how then did the github repo owner get hacked? well apparently he got phished attacked. Meaning, he clicked a link he wasn't suppose to and get hacked that way. Presumably they got his credentials logged in and slipped in the malware i assume.





Then your next question, how to mitigate this type of problem?

well i wouldn't suggest go cold turkey and never use an app for your nas in homelab. Instead, what you can do is only use apps you actually need. Yes updating is crucial but do you really need day zero updates? most often you don't. So your auto update, can be set to DEFER update by 1-2 weeks. This way, if something like this happens, you'd have at least 1-2 weeks hoping it gets caught, before you update. It's not full proof but since lots of these projects are open source, chances are someone will notice and will report, then the bad update will get a roll back BEFORE you auto update it. Thats the idea behind deferring an update.

Obviously if the update fixes a CRITICAL bug, then yeah, you should be flexible to immediately update for that, for sure.


this is one reason most people don't want to be homelabbers. they have no interest in tech (only enuff to use their pc/laptop/smartphone, but not beyond that ) nor do they want to babysit (aka manage) a homelab. it's not for everyone

This post has been edited by Moogle Stiltzkin: Sep 26 2025, 08:51 AM

Finally my Synology DS1815+ RIP.

This is my second NAS after the DS409.

Last weekend morning wakeup, whole store room smelling something burn. It happened before when the NAS power supply spoiled.

This time thought is the same, replace the powersupply. But cannot ON back. Press the button, nothing happens.

Time to look for a new set.

Probably buying back the 8bay DS1825+.

why not NAS Killer 6.0?

I want

1) hassle-free to run
2) Don't need crack my head to solve problem. I m not IT guy.
3) lower cost to run in terms of power usage. The NAS is run on 7/11 and no income is generated from it.
4) Synology have pic/video apps that I can share with family and relative around the world.
5) My work place is also using synology. I can sync backup with it.