I’ve received 2x WD30EFRX drives new from a third-party seller. They were sealed and are badged (the sticker) as WD30EFRX-68EUZN0 but show up in as WD30EURX (A/V drives for streaming video) in CrystalDiskInfo. Specifically, they show as “WD30EURX-64HYZY0”.
According to a response from WD support on this forum ( WD Red from China is it legit - #21 by fzabkar ) that particular model has been end of life since 2020, but the badges show a date of manufacture of 2024.
I have older (2017) WD Red WD30EFRX’s that show correctly in CrystalDiskInfo, so is this just a re-badged HDD?
It’s probably fake. Show us photos of the label and PCB.
Also check your serial number here:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/warrantystatusweb
I’ve tried checking the serial numbers and I get an error on the WD site (“No results found.“) but I couldn’t tell whether this was because I didn’t know the correct country to enter for warranty (they could be re-sold and not in the UK).
The R/N on the label is 771945. This matches the part number on the PCB, 2060-771945-001.
WD30EFRX-68EUZN0 and WD30EURX-64HYZY0 both appear to use the same PCB:
https://www.hdd-parts.com/nsearch.html?section=&query=2060-771945&searchsubmit=Search&vwcatalog=yhst-14437584971410
Can you see a serial number on the short edge of the casting? This should match the label, IIRC.
If you remove the PCB, there will be a YYWW or WWYY (Year/Week) date code on the PCB. The following example has “1013” in the top right corner. That is either week 13 of 2010 or week 10 of 2013:
https://s.turbifycdn.com/aah/yhst-14437584971410/91710805-19.gif
There will also be YYWW date codes on the ICs.
You can dump the firmware modules using the demo version of WDMarvel. These modules will have the real identity and manufacture date.
Thanks for the response, @fzabkar. I did check the serial number on the short edge and it matches, but this is just another sticker.
I have tried to get WDMarvel working but there’s a runtime error on Windows 11 and it doesn’t look like it’s been supported in years (there’s a thread with the same issue and no resolution here: problem starting the program - wdmarvel.com).
I don’t have the tool to remove the PCB and ideally don’t want to if I’ll be returning the drives.
So the evidence that they are re-badged drives is:
- CrystalDiskInfo shows a different drive model, which is the same board as the WD30EFRX uses (but it’s a cheaper drive)
- It’s suspicious that it’s not a WD Red Plus with that DOM
- The “Power On Count” in CrystalDiskInfo does NOT increment even when I plug/unplug the drive, but it does for another WD30EFRX (legitimate) in the same caddy!? So the Power On Count just sits on 2 and the Power On Hours sit on zero (!). Can that be hacked?
How confident do you think that I can be they are fake, and does (3) above give any better indication? Is there anything else from the CrystalDiskInfo that looks suspicious to you? (using an external USB drive bay to access it)
The drive is 100% fake. The model number reported by CDI should match the label.
I performed some image searches against both model numbers, and the serial number prefix was the same for both – WMC4N and WCC4N. Your drive reports WC3K2. That suggests a third model or family, but I haven’t found any model with that prefix.
BTW, WDMarvel demo works on my old Win10 32-bit machine without any mods.
The SMART attribute data can be hacked (I’ve written a tool that parses the SMART firmware module), but I don’t know if it’s possible to prevent the POH and Power Cycle counts from advancing.
Edit:
I just had another idea. AV drives support the ATA Streaming command set. Can you dump the Identify Device information using CDI?
Select Edit → Copy Option and tick all the boxes
Select Edit → Copy to copy the data to the clipboard
Open Notepad and type Ctrl-V or Edit→Paste to paste the clipboard contents
… or paste the clipboard directly into your next post
Edit:
Bit 4 of word 84 of the Identify Device info block is set if “the Streaming feature set is supported”.
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I can’t tell from the export unfortunately. The IDENTIFY_DEVICE section is in hex and I don’t know the word length. The 84th block of hex has a 1 in the final character, but it does on my legitimate WD30EFRX drive as well.
The block is below with ASCII on the side.
– IDENTIFY_DEVICE ---------------------------------------------------------
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
000: 427A 3FFF C837 0010 0000 0000 003F 0000 0000 0000 Bz?..7…?..
010: 5744 2D57 4333 4B32 3031 3344 4B45 3920 2020 2020 WD-WC3K2013DKE9
020: 0000 0000 0000 3135 2E30 3243 2E30 5744 4320 5744 …15.02C.0WDC WD
030: 3330 4555 5258 2D36 3448 595A 5930 2020 2020 2020 30EURX-64HYZY0
040: 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 8010 4000 2F00 ..@./.
050: 4001 0000 0000 0007 3FFF 0010 003F FC10 00FB 0100 @…?..?..
060: FFFF 0FFF 0000 0007 0003 0078 0078 0078 0078 0000 …x.x.x.x..
070: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 8406 0000 0040 0040 …@.@
080: 01FE 0000 7069 7E01 4123 7069 BE01 4123 207F 0000 …pi~.A#pi..A# …
090: 0000 0000 0000 0000 8080 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
100: A3B0 5D50 0001 0000 0000 0000 6003 0000 0000 0000 ..]P…`…
110: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 4018 …@.
120: 4018 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 @…
130: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
140: 0000 0000 0004 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
150: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
160: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
170: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
180: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
190: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
200: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 4000 …@.
210: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
220: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
230: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 1000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
240: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 …
250: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 B3A5 …
