I purchased two drives from a local retailer, Best Buy. I purchased both drives at the same time, in the same transaction.
The box for both drives look identical, and both have the same model number on the sticker outside the box (WDBH2D0030HNC-NRSN). However, when I opened both boxes the drives inside are different.
The first drive’s model is: WD30EZRZ-00Z5HB0, with a manufacture date of 17-APR-2019.
The other drive’s model is: WD30EZRZ-00GXCB0, with a manufacture date of 17-JUN-2018.
When I speed-test both drives, they yield different results, with the older drive actually performing ~25MB/s faster than the newer drive. This is concerning because I plan to use both drives in a simple desktop RAID array. As I understand, all drives in a RAID set should be identical for best performance.
Is it normal for WD to package different model drives in identical boxes? Should I return both drives to the retailer and try my luck at getting 2 drives that match? Should I call WD? What would you do in this case?
