Preclearing USB Hard Drives BEFORE you shuck them!

[@eduardoig17]

I used to work at Best Buy and that is totally the reason for it most likely. Because in order to price match it does have to be the same exact item (model name). We were even suppose to check if they were in stock at that location. So for example if Target was selling AirPods that normally sell for $250 for $200 but Target did not have them in stock we were suppose to not price match (I did anyways just because I am not a a$$hole like that)

[@joshclevenger2761]

That nord vpn ad was very disturbing

[@edstar83]

I was just going to comment that. I know its just a toy but still messed up.

[@karlblixt8648]

Why anyone think that displaying their company name besides the image of a mechanical dog in flames making sad dog sounds is beyond me.

[@aviatorbimmer]

I agree. What a distasteful ad and the fact that Byte My Bits hasn't bothered to remove it, really shows the lack of respect he has toward his viewers. Reported and unsubscribed.

[@joester4life]

That's Xfinity burning through your data cap w/out NordVPN.

[@chomp7927]

@@aviatorbimmer well you won't be missed, interesting though that you took the time to announce your departure as if anyone cared. I wish you luck on KZbin though if you think this is that offensive, there are episodes of sponge bob that would probably make you check out of life lol. Stay strong though, if people like you think this was promoting violence I hope you never watch TV or movies ever again, your little mind just might not know what to do! PS, I subbed just to make up for you claiming leaving so you changed nothing.

[@lyfandeth]

OEM branded drives are sold by contract from the maker. So, when a 10MB Seagate drive was maybe $800, you vould buy "the same" drive from DEC. Except to Seagate retail drive might have up to 40 bad sectors, while the ones sold to DEC were required to have no more than 2 bad sectors. Indicating that the drives selected for DEC were also less likely to have more media failures in the future. OEM and branding can involve way more than what you can see.

[@lonster3000]

Thumbs up just for the explanation of the Easystore vs Elements brands.

[@sp1es]

Maybe advisable to use USB 3.0 ports unless you like 30MB/s preclear speeds.

[@pauleccleston6627]

Seriously don't bother pre clearing more than once, it's a complete waste of time.

[@camaromike82]

Pre-clearing does more than just writing 0's to the drive to make sure its not bad out of the box... It writes 0's so when it's added to the array is is immediately available for storage (the array is offline during the built in clearing operation) as 0's across the data stripe for the unraid driver does not change the parity calc (so parity is still valid). Pre-clear also writes a special signature to the drive so unraid can recognize that it's been properly pre-cleared. How long have you been using unraid?

[@tachyonpost1472]

82CamaroBase in the recent versions of unraid the array is online during the clearing phase of new drives. That was a godsend of na update.

[@johnm2012]

One concern I have about pre-clearing the drive while it's still inside it's case is the temperature. Reading and especially writing continuously for tens of hours is going to cause it to get pretty warm as there's very little airflow inside that plastic case. The other thing I noticed when I last shucked a 5 TB WD Elements drive back in the day when they came with a Green drive inside, is that the USB to SATA bridge chip they used had an encryption function. What this meant was that whatever you wrote to the drive through the USB connection was completely unreadable once you'd shucked it and connected it to a SATA controller. It was still usable but you had to start over with the pre-clearing because encrypted zeros are not all zeros! I don't know if WD dropped the encryption on more recent Elements drives.

[@Vendemiair]

@johnm2012 Agree, I've tried transferring a lot of data on these WD external drives and they sure heat up a lot (I have a temperature monitoring program for all my drives). If I was gonna write on these continuously for 24 hours, at the minimum I'd put an electric fan near to blow air through those ventilation holes.

[@desertgecko4549]

So, two is more than one but less than three, eh? Damn, I learn something new every day. Thank so much.

[@TuiCatNZ]

Yeah quite common for big retailers to get custom products to prevent price matching.

[@EposVox]

Hmmm I should be doing this.

[@handlealreadytaken]

The only negative so far has been the turn around time on the RMA. It takes about two weeks total being on the east coast unless you do an Advanced RMA. However it was easy to just return the bare drive and they ship back a fully enclosed one with power supply and cables. A lot of waste since I end up having to pitch them. Would be nice to buy the drives themselves even at the price of a full unit.

[@kindanyume]

Also for preclear.. skip the initial read is ok.. do NOT skip the post read however I've done more drives than I can count in my life not just counting unraid.... so just one run of preclear with post read enabled is very good basis, A 2nd run if you have time to burn.. but even one is better than a "seatools" etc long generic (which should be run on ANY drive before use if its not being precleared) I tend to precler a rive bby default even if its nnot going into my server.. but if time is a factor a longg generic iss the min really. Also regardless of WD of Seagate drives.. setup a fan for airflow around//over the USB cases since they are notorious for heating issues etc.. and while some say the heating is a torture test it is a bad idea imo since it can kill a drive that's otherwise fine and if you are running any proper server the hdds will always have proper cooling avail when they are running.

[@TheSimonScowl]

2 or 3 guitar picks in just the right places, and some gentle prying... and I haven't so much as scratched an enclosure yet (granted, mine have all been 4TB easystores).

[@Necrotic99]

There is one thing that is different, there is a pin you need to block if you want to install it on a normal system. This isn't relevant if you are using many drive cages since it seems the drive cage design means the pin is useless anyways, but if you connect it directly you run into issues: www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/890juk/33v_pin_fix_for_wd_white_labels_video/

[@mariodiy4517]

I had to use a piece of Kapton tape on that pin when I transferred my white label WD 8TB drive to a seagate gaming hub shell for the extra USB Ports. I found out the hard way that the hardware wouldn't work well with the drive and deleted all my games on the drive. I didn't think I needed to tape that 3.3v pin because I wasn't using it in a server.

[@officialViVi6]

Got a 10tb WD Elements for $140 a few days ago on amazon during a flash sale :)

[@neverthere5689]

When I hooked my post shucked easystore 10Tb HD directly to my pc via sata and it didn’t get power. I did some googling and saw I need to cover a pin on the power connector, so I did that withnon conductive tape and it worked. Is that normal?

[@bb2ridder757]

Late answer but yes

[@danroberts7975]

Doesn't the easy store come with software the elements drive doesn't? Though it wouldn't matter in this case. Never shucked an easy store drive but I have shucked element drives using 4 guitar picks on the plastic latches but I do have to admit that Jason's way of shucking drives is more entertaining to watch.

[@nikbim1412]

t km cmkc i

[@proximajoe]

Why not use SpinRite?

[@MarthSR]

Using anything from Gibson Research Corp goes against my faith.

[@proximajoe]

@@MarthSR why is that

[@IkesVintageTech]

I looked into the Seagate warranty and found this “This limited warranty is void if a Product is returned with removed, damaged or tampered labels or any alterations (including the unauthorized removal of any component or external cover).” Has anyone ever been declined warranty repair since this video has been posted? Curious if that’s something added recently or if it’s always been there.

[@ahvamp]

Is there anyway to do something similiar to pre-clear on a windows machine? I've yet to build my unraid NAS.. just gotten HDDs first as they were cheap..

[@zokoloo5000]

If you format the drive in Windows and uncheck the 'Quick Format' option it will write data to each sector to check for problems. Not sure if Unraid's pre-clear and the standard windows format are exactly 1 to 1 but it should be good enough.

[@Chukwu1967]

"Pre" clearing. George Carlin would love that word.

[@KRich408]

If you have a Esata Port you can run a extensive Smart test and a few other tests from a window PC if not just use the sata cable, sure it's not as convenient as the USB cable but I think it's more thorough.

[@nathanp2007]

What do you recommend in terms of software to check a HDD (shucked) within Windows? My NAS is a Synology so I don't have or use UNRAID. Are there any programs for Windows that can get the job done and give me a bit of piece of mind that these new HDD's I shucked are relatively healthy?

[@HotRodHippie]

Hmm I picked up two of the 10TBs from Newegg this week and already shucked one. Doh

[@iiamlost]

Most people just use the badblocks command nowadays instead of preclear since unraid preclears the drive when you add it to the array during format.

[@Bytemybits]

this is a focuse on the drives ability to survive the preclear, not the clearing itself.

[@SkipMorrow]

Jason, have you done a video on taking plex on the go? How can we use plex on vacation? On a plane? In a hotel room? Also, along those same lines, how can we use plex at home when the internet is down and when plex's servers have problems? There's always sync, but what if I want access to my entire server or at least a large portion of it?

[@rougarou6635]

You could get a roku to take with you on vacation and use the plex app. You can connect to your plex server from home without internet so long as you're on the same network as the server.

[@LiquidCipher]

@@rougarou6635 Not as easy as that with the Roku. You can't always connect to a Hotel wifi because of the splash page you have to accept to connect. Better to bring your own access point with you to bridge the network and you can accept the wifi agreement with a connected laptop or smartphone and then connect with your client and you should be golden. Something like this helps! bit.ly/2knxJrB

[@excdnforces4035]

you should run grc spinrite on the drives, its one of the best tools to run before they are used i have done that to a bunch of my drives in my file server and so far they have been running great for years

[@mariodiy4517]

Do you recommend running this test on a shucked FireCuda from the Xbox Game drive FireCuda edition that will be installed inside an Xbox One? Thanks.

[@savingmoneyunapologetically]

Hi, I love your channel! I am learning as I go! You have explained a lot to me so far. Thanks for all you do. I do have a question if you can answer it for me, please. Can I run Preclear if I do not have a raid or un raid set-up? I am running windows 10 on an ACE Mini PC dedicated to a PLEX set up. Thanks

[@Icantthinkofanameman]

I didn't have the preclear broom hd logo in the unassigned devices area. Did they remove it in the newer versions? I know this is kind of an old video

[@cleverestx]

I ran WD data lifeguard diagnostics EXTENDED on each of my 14TB Easystore drives. I'm good.

[@Joeyhelmond0492]

according to the new NIST 800-88 guidelines, new drives only need one pass of a fixed value (zeroes or ones, 0x00 or 0xFF).

[@kindanyume]

they do that naming and they also have a if model # assigned to many products. The TCL tvs for example exact same TV..1 gitt diff in model # for BB vs walmart just to avoid price matching.. However in some cases if you raise a stink an show them proof thats the only diff some mgrs will authorize it but be prepared for fight.

[@giovannivittorioambrosini6621]

Hi Jason, I just bought a wd elements 10 TB n I'm preclearing it before schuking it, but I've noticed it stays locked at 57°C (135°F), is that normal? It's not in a very warm room either, about 21°C (70°F). I've also got a couple of WD My books 10TB, which idle at around 37-38°C (~100°F)

[@Wolverineeeeeeee]

You might have an EDAZ drive. You can check the model number to find out. They are hotter and louder than the EMFZ drives since they are air filled.

[@giovannivittorioambrosini6621]

@@Wolverineeeeeeee alright, thx. I’ll check asa i shuck it. I haven’t done it yet cos I wanted to preclear it first

[@robertt9342]

So running Crystal Disk Info, performing a Full Format (not Quick Format) in Windows, and then viewing the condition of the drive after the format would be similarly effective for Windows users?

[@JasonLoveman]

What if I'm not running unraid?

[@UserName-gj1xs]

Just got an 8tb for 140 great video timing

[@fastjp72]

6:36 jellyfin for the win!

[@robertcercel4078]

What size drives did you buy? Do the 2TB or 4TB versions have a white label red drive?

[@richardseabrook4682]

What are you doing with the SATA3 to USB3 interface board that is in these? Do they just go in the bin? Please would you have a look at the controller IC on them and let us know the part number; would be useful, please. Bizarrely, (don't ask), I need a couple of these...

[@abc7297]

If you are on windows try h2testw. Basically the same like the test tool from unraid and for free.

[@IraQNid]

This could lead to more people being dishonest when they return an external USB 3.x drive to places like Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc. Those types of places don't usually plug the hard drives in to verify that the internal capacity matches what their packaging says they are. Or to even attempt to validate the drive works at all. They'll check for visible signs of defect and sort it based on that. Typically if it looks like "everything is there" and the packaging is in good shape that sucker goes back on the sales floor at either the same or slightly reduced prices. For a scammer though you could slip in a lower capacity drive, a drive from a different manufacturer, or one that plain doesn't work anymore to get a fat refund or swap of equal or better value unit that hasn't been opened before. I got burned once with this type of scenario. While it was a little bit tricky to prove I was the victim I learned my lesson not to buy computer tech from places that dabble in it like a Walmart or Target or Sears.

[@scubieman]

Thanks for all the Videos Jason. You make it so I want to wake up every 4 days and watch your videos!

[@Bytemybits]

Its the burning dog that did it for you. dont lie

[@tonyvalenti6614]

Another great video! What if your not using unraid? I have 6 14TB easystore’s I’m going to shuck and place in a Synology DS1621+ I waiting on to be delivered. Is there a method/software needed to do something similar to preclear the drives or am I good to just stick them in there and build my raid? TIA

[@joelcrocker1094]

? does Jason do ya know if Prearranging has to be on a western-digital drive, can it be like on A old sea gate drive to test & verify the sectors from an ebay deal

[@buffaloxp]

This methods works decently enough, but a drive that is connected to the system via SATA or SAS will be faster than USB. Also, how do you manage to get your drives clearing as such a speed that it is done in 48 hours? I did a 10TB Easystore last week. Even connected via SATA, it took four days to do two passes.

[@Perplexer1]

Let's be realistic here. WD will never sponsor a channel using their products in a way they were not intended to be used.

[@skatcat743]

6:16 JELLYFIN!

[@k3nnit]

I've just bought 4x 14TB enclosed drives. Do someone has an idea of how much time will it take to preclear a disk? I'm a bit worried it will take me a month .... Plus SHR rebuild time in my NAS then. .

[@JoeWayne84]

How come I shucked two 8 tb hard drives like this and they won’t show up in bios are in windows

[@DougS2K04]

Just curious. Did both the Elements and the Easystore have the same model number hard drives? I know the Elements have WDXXEMAZ drives but not sure on the Easystores.

[@Machaing]

Thanks for the USB tip

[@mrandoms]

can a shucked 11b2da2 drive work in nas?

[@joejojo5966]

Are these good? or when buy a HDD theres always a chance its gonna take a poop pretty quick?

[@fancyhandlegoeshere]

What's that light you have in the background?

[@RexxReviews]

It seems WD is using different drives in this here recently that aren't the normal red drives and run WAY hot.

[@CraigLambert]

Wait. You've never had a WD drive fail on you before? Damn! I prefer WD over other drives but haven't been that lucky.

[@Bytemybits]

the closest I've come was when I was switching to unraid I ran preclear on everything. found two drives with bad blocks and a few errors. But I got my data off just fine and they were under warranty. #lucky

[@Coffeebeard]

Western digital and Toshiba. I haven’t had one die yet. Sure the Toshibas get wonky with age, but they continue to work and pass dst. Now, Seagate on the other hand... Fun fact, I have a 20 year old 40 GB Maxtor IDE still flying... And a 30MB Conner, but that’s another story.

[@whyomgwhywtf]

Jesus the utility and functionality of unRAID is so much different (better?) than FreeNAS. I'm thinking I may be migrating from FreeNAS over to unRAID soon...as always thanks for the info.

[@systemmax2000]

New to channel. What do you do with all these drives?

[@williamwilkinson8289]

Hello i have a Asus Blu ray external burner drive i know it burns Blu rays and dvds but could it burn 4K? the type of drive is BW-12D1S-U with an update?

[@Leftfield2k7]

Of course it can burn 4K video, it is just a data file. You will however be limited to maximum size of 50Gb (DL BD-R) so your 4k video would need to be stripped and the x265 video probably re-encoded to fit!

[@robertt9342]

@Cerus98 . Well a 4K drive should be able to read 4K discs, now ripping with those can be done if you can change the firmware. 4K leverages BDXL, and not all of those drives can rip UHD discs either.

[@WizardNumberNext]

Writing de same thing into HDD sites have exactly no benefit over writing this once I would write different patterns and read them like badblocks does 0x55 0xaa 0xff 0x00 is good enough Writing just zeroes is not as good and even those patterns won't catch everything. Those will catch only very broken blocks, those duży blocks would pass as good blocks I personally like to use 0xcc 0x66 0x33 0x99 0x55 0xaa 0xff 0x00 as good compromise. This won't catch everything.

[@ZeppelinEXAhmed]

My Western Digital 2 Terabyte hard disc external showed problem after 2 years and died one year later. My warranty expire before I could replace.

[@williamwilkinson8289]

I was going to add Blu ray to my 2 4tb drives and add it to my Plex since I got rid of Netflix? Ill have my own home Netflix?

[@bcadventure2015]

I shucked my first drive today. Grabbed a 6tb for $119 Canadian. Seagate uses the Compute line of drives in their external drives apparently. Hopefully no third pin :S

[@nicholasbackwell1869]

How do you recommend pre clearing without unRAID?

[@mark2220]

Seatools for Windows

[@Leftfield2k7]

A simple FULL format in Windows 'Disk Management' will discover any faulty sectors. No need for any software

[@julian.morgan]

unRAID will always re-do the pre-clear so there's not much point. If you download the trial version pre-clear happens before you create your array so the trial lasts indefinitely. It then 'signs' the drive as having been checked so its ready for your actual unRAID system, which doesn't happen if you zero the drive any other way.

[@tmck2278]

Learned something again, Thanks

[@criptoportugal]

What about SMR?

[@robertt9342]

What about it?

[@xeress]

Actually useful. Thanks.

[@lyricalengineer]

Why do u keep shaking the drive and waving them around when you talk?

[@Pabula]

Can you do preclear wiith unraid trail?

[@Bytemybits]

that's what I did lol

[@benlyons7752]

Two times is definitely more than zero times 😬

[@np8781]

New camera video in the future? Noticed the opened box in the background.

[@Bytemybits]

I was going to but the people lied about what it was so I decided not to do it. Just need to package it up and send the POS back.

[@CoMmAnDrX]

HDD Regenerator is what I run on my drives before shucking them.

[@demonmaestro]

oh crap... Welp, now we know what the red solo cup and gas was about.

[@IEnjoyCreatingVideos]

Good video Jason! Thanks for sharing it with us.👌👍😎JP

[@SuperLaplander]

Good info, thanks!

[@selven08]

Isn't 51 degrees a little hot?

[@JasonHendry22]

what is pre clear

[@sikz26300]

I'm preclearing my new 16TB exos..... damn you weren't kidding about how long it takes. And I've got 3 to preclear :(

[@rajkumarsteel]

Nice video. Howtonin freenas besides dd

[@joester4life]

WAIT.. What? I thought if you shuck it, it voids out your warranty?

[@henrycruz45cal]

The drives you are referencing for 300 are faster 7200 rpm drive

[@yourimuldernl]

Ok never do that sponsor thing again its more 4chan video kinda freaked me out

[@Bytemybits]

but it go your attention...lol

[@yourimuldernl]

@@Bytemybits that's true

[@victorshane4134]

Jason, u are wrong. Precelar does NOT checks/writes every sector. I fired up Ubuntu Server, installed Wipe app, and with a single command started it on a 4 tb drive (yeah, a 4 TB drive). The estimated time to finish ONE (1) time to overwrite every single sector was more than 1.5 years! Yes you read it correclty, one and a half years to finish at full speed. So preclear function is clearly using some tricks or just skip the half of the sectors. I remember, when i had to ActiveKillDisk (yeah, its a tool to erase data from hdd) a 160/200 Gb drive. It took me more than one day to finish.

[@LiquidCipher]

What was your single command?

[@rougarou6635]

I did 3 passes with Dariks boot and nuke on a 1tb drive and it took a few hours... So... Yeah

[@phydeaou]

I'm not sure what the Wipe app does, but preclearing a drive by definition writes 0s to all the drives. I just shucked 2 10TB drives and I wanted to know more about preclear... Spaceinvader One has a great video on it if you want a second opinion. kzbin.info/www/bejne/maSqiqWaaqxjn80

[@esmannr]

I think this is funny... I have a program for internet security. This company also offers VPN service. I get an alert that I am exposed to people on the internet and that they can see where I am. It shows what it thinks is my IP address. The IP this program on my computer shows is my VPN IP from another company.

[@mark2220]

Ugh, I want to buy at that price so badly.. but I don't need it yet.. and by the time I do I can probably get 12s or 14s at that price :x I'm going to behave.. maybe

[@skumkaninen]

Remember that Nordvpn was HACKED - so do not trust them for anything important. They pay alot of youtubers - some have stopped trusting them (jays2cent) but watch out.

[@DaveSomething]

that thing on fire is fucking disturbing... just thought I'd mention it.

[@bucharestcartraffic]

GG .. 10x for the info.

[@massgrave8x]

I'm gonna pre dude

[@andrewdupuis1151]

I have 4 tb USB harddrive its almost full about 600 GB left its great backing up games i brought on online

[@sageosaka]

Haha I was so looking forward to that ad in the beginning. Hmm... Never thought I'd be typing that into a KZbin comment.

[@Energyone]

Do you really use a $12,000 camera to make these?

[@Trooper_Ish]

Byte-My-TeraBits

[@deathcometh61]

Haha. Wd give me hdd. I need my Tb fix.

[@paulhetherington3854]

Damn-- pre audio drive, = no USB drive-- online. Chips swapped-- hacked. Laser drives. 16-bits map U 150amps (optical text-drive)--> 9in/3sec (audio) --> (150/-16)=9frqs -1< 2 -- fails log10, or FCC start-- of 10 frqs power cells, bits map drive-- (150/9)=16frqs dx=+7-- proves drives-- are used, by banks-- Sempra SDG&E--FBI Wall Street-- never use: Legislative intent.(16+9)25v 1db. But it's easily, an illegal net-- exposure.

[@amateurwizard]

Can someone recommend an LSI card for 4x10TB drives

[@LiquidCipher]

LSI 9211-i in IT mode.

[@RandomUser6947]

Agree with Scott, the LSI 9211-8i flashed to IT mode (HBA only mode), is a great choice. You can get them used for around $50 on Ebay. They can handle 8 drives, but if you only need 4, you just use 4. Then there's room for expansion later on.

[@TechySpeaking]

But it takes so loooooong...

[@davidjacob6979]

Takes me about 5 days to Preclear a 10TB drive. Worth it for the peace of mind but that's usually whenever I buy drives that are second hand. Anything over 1 x Preclear for a new drive is a little much though.

[@shadowdragonsky7950]

Are they 7200 RPM??

[@LiquidCipher]

5400rpm, like Red Drives.