Seagate 4TB Barracuda 2.5" 15mm Hard Drive

UPDATE 4/10/2018: I left the title to this review the same as it was when I originally posted it so that those people who had already read it could still find it. MY ORIGINAL REVIEW IS 100% INCORRECT - BOTH DRIVES I PURCHASED WERE TAKEN FROM SEAGATE EXTERNAL ENCLOSURES AND SOLD BY OCEANSIDE STORE AS NEW DRIVES. While technically these drives are new (as in never been used) THEY ARE NOT COVERED BY A SEAGATE WARRANTY. I only learned this when Seagate called me AFTER they had already told me that the drives would be covered under a Seagate warranty (read my original post, below). I had a Seagate manager escalate this issue to his management to tell me why I had been told by one of their employees that there was a warranty expiration date error on my drives and that my drives would now be covered under a Seagate warranty. The Manager told me that the Seagate employee that told me my drives would be covered under a Seagate warranty didn't check all of the databases he was supposed to check. If he had I would have been told ORIGINALLY that the drives would not be covered under a Seagate warranty. NET MESSAGE - THE DRIVES BEING SOLD BY OCEANSIDE STORE DO NOT CARRY A SEAGATE WARRANTY. I actually spoke with Oceanside Store and they told me that they would warranty the drive for two years. Seagate told me that Oceanside Store is not an authorized Seagate retailer. So, caveat emptor (buyer beware) - you have to make the call whether or not you want a Seagate warranty or an Oceanside Store warranty. ************ ORIGINAL POST ************* SEAGATE HAS A WARRANTY RECORDS ISSUE THAT AFFECTS THE EXPIRATION DATE OF THE WARRANTY ASSOCIATED WITH THIS HARD DRIVE. THE ISSUE IS SEAGATE'S, NOT AMAZON'S OR OCEANSIDE STORE'S. Let me explain. I ordered two (2) Seagate 4TB 2.5" Barracuda ST4000LM024 hard drives from Oceanside Store that were fulfilled by Amazon. I had read some of the negative Amazon reviews on this hard drive regarding how Amazon had shipped drives furnished by Oceanside Store that had supposedly been removed from external drive enclosures and sold as new drives whose warranty had expired. Because of these reviews I called Seagate as soon as I received my drives (3/28/2018) to check their warranty status. I was told that both drives' warranties had expired - on the same day - 12/13/2017. I thought that was pretty coincidental. So I decided to check out a few things just to confirm that the issue was Oceanside Store's, and not Seagate's, before I called Oceanside Store to complain. First, I Googled to see if other online retailers had the drive in stock. Nope, not at B & H Photo - they actually showed it was out of stock. I couldn't find it at Fry's, either (I may have missed it, though). At this point I began to wonder if the drive was a currently shipping model. So I checked the Seagate website and, sure enough, the ST4000LM024 is a currently shipping drive. So if it's a current drive, why wasn't it widely available? I never answered that question, but I decided to check the Seagate User Manual for the ST4000LM024 to see when the drive was first released. The Revision History in the User Manual said 7/19/2016. So how could my 2 year warranty have already expired if the drives weren't introduced until July 2016, and it's now March 2018, assuming I had received drives from the first batch released in 2016, which was highly unlikely? Something didn't add up. So I called Seagate again. This time I asked them to tell me when the ST4000LM024 drive was initially released. I was put on hold for about 15 minutes, which I thought was odd. When the support guy came back on the line he told me that the drive had initially been released "sometime between Q3 and Q4 of 2017." The support guy had already realized that the warranty expiration date of 12/13/2017 was a bogus date. What took him 15 minutes to answer my question about initial release date was mainly spent uncovering the fact that the warranty expiration date for both of my drives was bogus! He said there was an error in their warranty system that had cause the 12/13/2017 date to be entered incorrectly. He immediately updated the warranty expiration date for both of my drives to 12/17/2019. I've been in the computer industry for 30 years and I have seen these kind of manufacturer screw-ups before - especially from Seagate. Don't get me wrong, Seagate makes a great product, but they've always struggled with customer service (much improved over the last 3 years!) AND RECORDKEEPING. With that said, I'd encourage anyone who buys any of the 3, 4, or 5 TB 2.5" hard drives to call Seagate to confirm that your warranty expiration date is correct. If you don't call, and your drive fails, you may hear that your warranty coverage has already expired. It will be too late at that point to get them to change the warranty expiration date on you drive. I gave this drive a one-star review ONLY so that it would be seen near the top of the negative reviews. I haven't actually installed and used these drives, yet. However, based on my past experience with Seagate drives in general, I'd give these drives and "advance" rating of 4 stars.