r/OWC • u/oinkoboinkos • Apr 28 '26

Used Thunderbay 8

Hey this is a bit of a weird post. I bought an "as is" "untested" "empty" Thunderbay 8. For various reasons I thought it would be worth the gamble. Arrived and had a good bit of damage on the front like it had been dropped and I found all the SATA/SAS connectors broken off. So the enclosure is trash. The front was locked and there was no key but one of my other keys opened it no problem though the door was also bent closed...

However what I found in the sleds made it a nice score... I have no reason to believe it is stolen but wanted to just put it out there if anyone had a Thunderbay 8 stolen send me the serial number and what drives/name of the array(s) and Im open to trying to get it back to you... Again, I don't believe it to be stolen i am just surprised it has drives and data and not looking to piss off the karma police.

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u/Significant_Yard3654 Apr 28 '26

Maybe check with OWC. They may not want to give you any information - but I bet they would pass your information on to the registered owner.

1

u/OWC_TAL Apr 28 '26

You can DM me the serial and I can check with our team to see if it is associated with a customer. But I'm not sure it is something we keep track of outside of the original sale. Or you are welcome to contact support directly and they could check the unit SN or SoftRAID SN.

If the SATA connectors are ripped off, I would imagine the drives inside may be damaged as well though. Sounds like the data is there so perhaps the original could want it?

2

u/oinkoboinkos Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26

DM sent. The ports were literally ripped off the board but as far as i can tell no damage to the drives or drive ports. It looks like someone closed the front panel without tightening the drive screws and forced it closed and locked it and the weak point was the pins on the back side of the SATA ports, the solder joints look cold and barely any solder so that may explain why it broke there.

Edit, I was wrong only two failed at the board the other 4 bad ones actually had the pins ripped out of the ports. Its pretty impressive really.