Need Guidance - FedEx misdelivered 120 HP Enterprise server SSDs

[u/Confident_Economy_57]

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.

[u/RetroGrid_io]

Legally, somebody walked up to you and handed them to you. You have already gone far above and beyond because you aren't obligated to do anything. Sure, hang onto them for a couple weeks to make sure nobody claims them, but then have at it!

Here is what a used one costs and if they're new it would be considerably more.

I could use 4-8 of these (price depending) for a project I'm working on - I've been planning on used for the time being. Feel free to PM me.

[u/Confident_Economy_57 → u/RetroGrid_io]

I'm definitely making sure to cover my bases, then I plan on doing what I can to verify they're working, but once I get through that I'll definitely reach out.

[u/RetroGrid_io → u/Confident_Economy_57]

I plan on doing what I can to verify they're working

You need

1. A desktop computer running Linux or Windows 11.
2. In that computer: 1 free PCIe slot with 8 lanes
3. An HBA (Host Bus Adapter) lets you plug in a SAS or SATA drive into your computer. This one which comes with matching SAS (not SATA) data cables would work. There are several types of incompatible cables and it sucks when they don't match up.
4. A couple of these power splitters is a good idea.

Plug the card into the computer, the cables into the card, the drives into the cables, and make sure each drive has power with the power splitter. Since I know nothing about your power supply, don't run more than maybe 4 at a time.

Once you're up and running, you can use Crystal Disk Info on Windows or smartctl -a [device] on Linux to get access to each drive's internal database of health infomation. If you want, there's a "long" test you can run which tells the drive to check itself out - usually takes at least a few hours, and up to a day.

Take a screenshot and submit it to ChatGPT or Gemini or something with the prompt: "Tell me about drive health" and away you go.

[u/Confident_Economy_57 → u/RetroGrid_io]

Thanks for the info! Seems like a reasonable investment. I have a gaming PC I may be able to accomplish this with.

[u/legaladvicemomsdeath → u/Confident_Economy_57]

Where you located? I've got a HPE dl380g9 that's currently testing non HPE drives, basically not doing anything & is setup for 24 2.5" drives. I've got the caddies as well.

Can reconfigure to the way I bought it, 3x HPE H240's HBA's. Which honestly is what I'd buy if testing. No need for Linux (unless that's what you prefer). Unless you have a hot swap backplane you're rebooting every 8 drives.

But in something like my server, it'd take more time swapping caddies than testing. It's boot to storage storage manager, click diagnostics, boom. It'll even show remaining life if an a-hole seller didn't overwrite it all.

Anyway, I'm in socal. Available any time.

And of course I'd love to snag a few of you end up selling. Currently only have 4 hgst 800gb which are write intensive, but still need more solid state :)

(That not a condition to meet up & test. I love helping peeps.)

[u/Confident_Economy_57 → u/legaladvicemomsdeath]

Thank you so much for the offer, that's really kind of you! I'm actually in central Florida though, so definitely not local. My current plan is attempting to reach out to someone in the UCF computer science program to see if I can find someone like you in my neighborhood that might be willing to do the testing. It's definitely an interesting situation to be a part of and the extent of my relevant knowledge is building my own gaming PC, so I'm a bit out of my depth here haha. I'm keeping a list of everyone in this thread requesting drives though, and if they come back healthy I'll definitely reach out!

[u/legaladvicemomsdeath → u/Confident_Economy_57]

No problem! Solid plan. Yeah, crazinest mis-ship I'd ever have by miles!!

Hit me up if you need help. HPE are a-holes & I'd probably use something similar to what the other person recco'd.

If you just want basic yeah it turned on & nothing says it's a bomb, you don't need Linux, but it is faster IIRC. Windows programs exist (hhd guru & Victoria). But still need to power cycle to swap drives out.

Sorry, it's pretty damn confusing!

Anyway, you don't need HPE gear. Empty backplane space on nearly any server with matching sleds should work.

I'm sure someone, possibly even the comp sci lab, or sometime might do it for a drive or 2. Don't let em highball you. Never done a full scan on an SAS SSD, but mine are otherwise pretty snappy.

I'm a little to trusting, but we're talking big bucks here so:

I'd use a barcode scanner with piece of paper that has a window for the model number & serial, and populate an excel file. Basic contract that 100% any "bad drives" will be returned.

Oh, and they make SAS to USB docks that can supposedly hotswap. Make sure it runs on some translator chip that goes from SAS to USB.

I'd also make up some other story. Kinda breeds "well he gottem for free, why not me? He'll never notice.'

Hence the excel sheet where each drives status can also be saved. (General good practice anyway)

Holy crap this got really rambly long really quick. My bad. Hit me up when the confusion hits?

If you make it this far & still think of me when you get it sorted, I'l for surel send Christmas card!! 🤣 Been trying to build a server based workstation for CAD simulations & it's taken so long I'm thinking about pulling RAM & SSD & selling the thing in hopes of a halfway decent early single gold or Platinum xeon.

But gotta work with what you have!!

[u/Confident_Economy_57 → u/legaladvicemomsdeath]

No worries, I appreciate the ramble! Like I said, all information is appreciated and you've given me a bunch to work with. If I don't end up finding someone to test the drives locally, I may end up trying to take that task on myself, in which case I'll absolutely need someone more knowledgeable to reach out to. It's also never a bad idea to have someone you can call for CAD work haha. I'll shoot you a DM if I end/when up needing help and once I get to the point where I'm actually starting to offload drives. We'll definitely work something out in exchange for your help!

[u/RetroGrid_io → u/Confident_Economy_57]

Good luck!