Is It Common For Brand New Hard Drives Out Of The Box Have Errors?

Is it common for brand new hard drives out of the box have errors. I bought a couple of hard drives -
WL 3TB 64MB Cache 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -at $47.99 for my desktop. I always check new drives when I get them in. These drives were listed as generic. Got them yesterday and have a check running on the first drive and at 80% it has only found 1 bad sector. I have found bad sectors on new drives in the past. My question is should I contact seller and request an exchange over this one bad sector.

Although it is listed as a generic drive it does turn out to be a Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000 HUA723030ALA640 hard drive that has been relabeled. I want to be fair so I wanted some opinions. The sector was found by my Deepspar Disk Imager 4. I have not checked the 2nd drive yet. These drives do not have the code of a refurbished drive nor were they posted as refurbished so these are over-runs I am sure. Some input would be appreciated. Thank you!

 

Yes, it is common for brand new hard drives out of the box to have a couple errors. However, it is also common that those bad sectors should have already been marked in the file tables as bad and unusable at the factory so the drive does not attempt to save anything to those bad sectors.

"Generic" in this case does NOT mean "generic" in the dictionary sense. As you noted, they certainly have "brand name" manufacturers.

When it comes to computer parts, I think the term "generic" came from how many of these products were packaged years ago - that is, in plain, "generic" white boxes. In fact, they used to be and sometimes still are called "white box" items.

These products started out as OEM products sold as parts directly to other manufacturers. For example, Dell might buy 1,000,000 "white box" or OEM drives to put in their factory assembled computers.

Many of these white box/OEM makers started selling these to "end user" consumers (you and me) at prices cheaper than the full "Retail" versions.

The main difference between a white box/OEM/generic drive and a full retail drive is simply the packaging. The full "Retail" version will come in a fancy box and inside the box, besides the drive, will be installation instructions, perhaps a data cable, and mounting screws too. If the drive is a 2.5" drive, it might include a 2.5 to 3.5 inch mounting bracket adapter.

The white box/OEM/generic drive package will include the drive and that's it. Another big difference, as mentioned above, is the price. The white box/OEM/generic will be significantly less expensive than the full "Retail" version which is what makes them so attractive for many.

Another common difference might be the warranty. The full retail version might come with a 3 year warranty, as an example, and free tech support. The white box/OEM/generic drive warranty might only be for 1 year and you get to provide any tech support.

And no, these probably are NOT "overruns", but instead were intentionally manufactured to be sold through a different marketing channel besides the traditional "Retail" outlets like Best Buy or Office Depot.

I think it wise to run error checking on these drives. I always do on new drives. Though I use chkdsk /r from an elevated command prompt, your 3rd party tool is fine. I recommend you run your same error checking program again after you have installed and used these drives for a month or so. If no more errors, no worries.

If you keep getting more and more errors, you need to be concerned as that is not normal and is a typical indication of impending doom. If you keep getting more and more errors, and if the retailer of these drives has a fairly generous exchange policy, I would return them. Check the return policy now so you know how much time you have.

 

You may have explained it much better than I did. I suspect these will be fine. Normally hold off till a second check before leaving feedback on drives any ways.

Thanks

 

No problem. Good luck.