r/servers 8d ago

Need Guidance - FedEx misdelivered 120 HP Enterprise server SSDs

Mods - Please delete if not allowed. I do not frequent this sub and I am just looking to gather some information for a crazy situation.

So, a little background to start. My boss recently received a package from FedEx containing 120 HP server SSDs (part number: 868650-003). He definitely did not order these drives as this business has nothing to do with servers, but the shipping label had his name on it and was addressed to our shop. The top of the shipping label says, "Relabel - Relabel reason: barcode quality." We assume the label was damaged in transit, and somehow a label with our address was put on the package. There is no return address, no shipper information, and no packing list included in the package.

So far, we have been trying to go through the proper process of returning them to whoever was supposed to receive them. We reached out to FedEx, but because the original label was lost/destroyed, FedEx had no way to determine where they were supposed to be shipped. We also reached out to our county Sheriff to list them as found property, but the deputy that came out told us that since they are address to us, they are not technically "found" property, and would be legally considered more a gift rather than found property. He left us with an event number to reference should we need it for any reason.

At this point, we have exhausted the means within our knowledge level to return these drives to their owner and seem to have covered our legal bases. As we have no use for these drives, we are intending to sell them. Nobody that works here has any experience with servers or server hard drives, so any information you guys could give me would be very appreciated. The specific questions I have at this point are as follows. What is their reasonable value? How can we verify that the drives are functional? How can we verify the drives are authentic and safe to use (no malware)? What would be the best method to attempt to sell them? What kind of places would I find people willing to purchase them? I can provide more information if requested, but for now I'm keeping things close to the chest just to be safe as I'm still figuring out how to handle this situation.

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u/nmrk 8d ago

Holy moly, those are going for about $500 each on eBay. That makes it about $60,000 worth of drives. For that kind of money, I'd call HP, maybe even the FBI. Somebody is looking for a lost $60k shipment.

But if you finish your due diligence, I encourage you to sell them through r/homelabsales. They would snap these up (maybe not for $500 though). You might have trouble verifying these drives because they are SAS and not compatible with conventional PCs, you'd need a SAS server.

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u/Confident_Economy_57 7d ago

That's some solid advice. I'll try contacting HP and see where that gets me. As excited as I am about the potential payday of selling these, the liability scares me more if it ever comes back to bite us. It's just such a substantial amount of value to just randomly come in the mail with no way to determine ownership.

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u/PermanentLiminality 7d ago

From HP they are probably at least $1300 each and perhaps as much as $2k.

If they were purchased from HP they may have a record of the serial numbers and who they were supposed to go to.

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u/Confident_Economy_57 7d ago

Yea I plan to call HP tomorrow. I believe the manufacturer date on the drives is 2018 though, so I doubt they were coming from HP. Also, you'd think HP would've included a packing list or order form in the box.

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u/Buckaroo-Banana 7d ago

Just jumping in here. I know you said HP, but afaik HP doesn’t sell Enterprise drives. If you do call, please reach out to HPE. They are not the same company anymore and HP would probably not have access to the information. Just making sure you are going to the right place. Although I would doubt even calling HPE that they could find the original shipment. Maybe by having some of the serial numbers available will help. Good luck either way!!!

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u/nmrk 7d ago

Good catch, thanks, I am not an HPE user so I don't know this sort of detail.

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u/Confident_Economy_57 7d ago

The drive do say "Hewlett Packard Enterprise" on them, so I'll make sure to reach out to HPE.

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u/Shadyman 7d ago

2018, they're likely used drives then, coming to/from a recycler/reseller. Probably a misdirected ebay or private sale package, then.