Two identical HDD's from different suppliers with completely different labels

[Allen]

I purchased two 4TB Seagate Barracuda's (ST4000DM000) from different suppliers, both arrived and physically they look identical, but they have COMPLETELY different labels and even have different P/N's.

http://imgur.com/htDXhkI

The one on the left is a label I am familiar with, the one on the right could just be with the new branding on it... but why is the P/N different? Have Google'd both, but cannot see any differences. In fact, searching for both P/N's on the Seagate website link to the same page (http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/interna...ku=ST4000DM000).

Maybe I am just being paranoid... but I like things to be the same.

[smargh]

Maybe the warranty country restriction. Check the warranty checker.

http://support.seagate.com/customer/...validation.jsp

From the one ending in 501: "This product is being returned from a country outside of the region where it was originally sold by Seagate. Warranty claims may not be accepted for products returned outside the region where the Product was first shipped by Seagate to an Authorized Seagate Distributor."

Grey import?

Edit: after 10 minutes trying different countries on the warranty validator, starting at A, it looks like this was a grey import from Canada - that selection doesn't show the region message. Hence the CAN ICES‑003 Compliance Label, I suppose.

So...
300 = UK
501 = Canada
Maybe.

001 = USA

... ah, bugger, I might be wrong. France eBay has a photo showing Z1Z0A61D / 9ZM270-001 that's warrantied to France. Never mind; thought I was on to something. Yours ending in 501 happens to be from Canada though.

http://www.channelpro.co.uk/news/780...ot-shades-grey

However, Van den Berg stresses this will not affect end users, maintaining “we will always honour our warranties” to unsuspecting end users of grey product.

... but there's another PDF a year later that says "Please note: Seagate has recently enhanced enforcement capabilities to support this policy"

[Allen]

Hmm, makes sense why the one from Amazon was £10 cheaper then... Oh well, as long as Seagate honour the warranty and they are actually identical models, I guess I don't have too much to worry about.

Very helpful smargh, thank you!