Western Digital!!

mmicrosysm · **Western Digital!! -** 10-05-2011, 14:51 | posts: 605 | Location: Box

I normally purchase Seagate for desktops and Hitachi, Samsung or Toshiba for laptops for my clients or personally hard drive replacement and/or upgrade. But this month I had no choice but to purchase some WD's drive due to supply from my wholesaler. Well so far 2 of those WD's have come back already defective, one 3.5" drive and one 2.5" drive. So I take it WD has not changed when it comes to reliability. Last WD drive I purchase!!!

sykozis · 10-05-2011, 17:48 | posts: 13,628 | Location: US East Coast

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmicrosysm

I normally purchase Seagate for desktops and Hitachi, Samsung or Toshiba for laptops for my clients or personally hard drive replacement and/or upgrade. But this month I had no choice but to purchase some WD's drive due to supply from my wholesaler. Well so far 2 of those WD's have come back already defective, one 3.5" drive and one 2.5" drive. So I take it WD has not changed when it comes to reliability. Last WD drive I purchase!!!

wow...getting a faulty WD harddrive is fairly rare compared to Seagate (since the merger with Maxtor). Out of 100 or so WD drives.....I've only ever had 1 fail in less than 5 years that was actually the fault of the drive (integrated controller failure). I've had 2 ATA66 drives fail....1 due to a software error and 1 due to sheer age (10 years is a long time for a drive that's powered 24/7).

Chillin · 10-05-2011, 22:26 | posts: 6,035 | Location: Chilling

I have over ten WD drives (including new ones), not one has ever failed me. I go and buy two Samsung 2TB drives, and one of them has a defective disk.

Sometimes you just win the short straw.

mcdinz · 10-28-2011, 09:21 | posts: 10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chillin

I have over ten WD drives (including new ones), not one has ever failed me. I go and buy two Samsung 2TB drives, and one of them has a defective disk.

Sometimes you just win the short straw.

Also me i bought last week WD Caviar Blue 320GB and its pretty working good.

scoutingwraith · 10-28-2011, 19:25 | posts: 9,259 | Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcdinz

Also me i bought last week WD Caviar Blue 320GB and its pretty working good.

Just a suggestion when getting a WD Drive i recommend their Black series. They might be a little higher priced but it seems they are of better quality.

BLEH! · **Memory**: 24GB @ 1600 @ 9-10-9-27

Only ever had a seagate go on me, all the rest are samsungs I thinks.

ShadowMyth · 10-05-2011, 22:30 | posts: 3,396 | Location: West Chester, PA

It seems like luck of the draw for both Seagate & WD. I've had to replace a Seagate three times & a WD once in the past couple years.

Zahn · 10-09-2011, 02:33 | posts: 51

Maybe its not WD fault, cuz when you see what delivery guys are doing to boxes with some expensive equipment its not wonder that many product are damaged.
IMO WD is the best company in HDD scene, some 3 years ago i bought Seagate drive, and it died 2 days after and i lost 320 gb of personal data , mostly music it hurts but what can you do.

scoutingwraith · 10-09-2011, 04:33 | posts: 9,259 | Location: Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha

Almost all of my hard drives are WD drives and i have never had any of them go bad on me. Heck i have an old 80GB that i still use to this day and still has not failed or show signs of any kind....

Indigo · 10-09-2011, 08:47 | posts: 22 | Location: Colorado

It's amazing how people get in an uproar based on conjectural evidence. If you look at the failure rates of the drives on Newegg or Amazon, you'll see a pretty striking spread in some of the families. I used to purchase the WD 640GB drives for my new builds (customers or myself) and I'd had a couple go south on me. I've experienced the same with Seagate, but with their 1TB drives. I've never had a Samsung go south on me, but I've only recently started to pick them over WD for main builds.

My point is that you'll always find fault in something that you've got a prejudice over in the first place. If something fails me, I don't cry over spilled milk (and yes, I'm a data paranoid FREAK, backing up things at least three levels deep in most cases) but if I'm done wrong by a maker, I'll stop using them for a short time, but I always go back and try them out again. You just never know, sometimes bad batches come through.

I'm not trying to tell you that you're a fool for saying what you're saying about WD (or anyone saying anything about any maker for that matter) just that QC isn't perfect, humans make these things, failures happen. WD isn't trying to sell you bad drives. At least their CEO doesn't think your drives are mainly used for porn

sykozis · 10-09-2011, 16:03 | posts: 13,628 | Location: US East Coast

Quote:

Originally Posted by Indigo

It's amazing how people get in an uproar based on conjectural evidence. If you look at the failure rates of the drives on Newegg or Amazon, you'll see a pretty striking spread in some of the families. I used to purchase the WD 640GB drives for my new builds (customers or myself) and I'd had a couple go south on me. I've experienced the same with Seagate, but with their 1TB drives. I've never had a Samsung go south on me, but I've only recently started to pick them over WD for main builds.

My point is that you'll always find fault in something that you've got a prejudice over in the first place. If something fails me, I don't cry over spilled milk (and yes, I'm a data paranoid FREAK, backing up things at least three levels deep in most cases) but if I'm done wrong by a maker, I'll stop using them for a short time, but I always go back and try them out again. You just never know, sometimes bad batches come through.

I'm not trying to tell you that you're a fool for saying what you're saying about WD (or anyone saying anything about any maker for that matter) just that QC isn't perfect, humans make these things, failures happen. WD isn't trying to sell you bad drives. At least their CEO doesn't think your drives are mainly used for porn

I had no prejudice against Maxtor, until I had 5 of their drives fail on me in the same day.... Now I'm glad they no longer exist....

sdamaged99 · 10-10-2011, 08:30 | posts: 1,913 | Location: Isle of Man

I'm running 12 of the 2TB WD Caviar Greens in a RAID6 set, not had a failure yet.

Plus i do believe WD offer an advanced replacement of faulty drives too (well they did with the Raptors anyway)

I think they are great drives

Ordered 5 x Samsung Spinpoint 500GB drives a couple of years back, 3 arrived faulty. It's all luck of the draw.

PhazeDelta1 · 10-10-2011, 08:54 | posts: 9,527 | Location: 90° N

Quote:

Originally Posted by sdamaged99

I'm running 12 of the 2TB WD Caviar Greens in a RAID6 set, not had a failure yet.

Plus i do believe WD offer an advanced replacement of faulty drives too (well they did with the Raptors anyway)

I think they are great drives

Ordered 5 x Samsung Spinpoint 500GB drives a couple of years back, 3 arrived faulty. It's all luck of the draw.

12? goddamn lol. i thought i was bad with having more than 5 hdds lol.

IcE · 10-29-2011, 01:02 | posts: 7,095 | Location: Toledo, Ohio

Quote:

Originally Posted by sykozis

I had no prejudice against Maxtor, until I had 5 of their drives fail on me in the same day.... Now I'm glad they no longer exist....

Come on now, if 5 failed in the same day you clearly were responsible. No way that was luck.

Agent-A01 · 10-29-2011, 01:32 | posts: 5,705 | Location: USA

Never had one fail on me, probably had about 8 total. I think its just coincidence because the delivery guys just throw the boxes around

sykozis · *Last edited by sykozis; 10-29-2011 at 01:35.*

Quote:

Originally Posted by ice445

Come on now, if 5 failed in the same day you clearly were responsible. No way that was luck.

3 were DOA, the other 2 BSOD'd while trying to install software and failed to be detected afterwards.... Maxtor's reputation for poor quality was hardly my fault..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Agent-A01

Never had one fail on me, probably had about 8 total. I think its just coincidence because the delivery guys just throw the boxes around

UPS is real bad about throwing packages around.... Under their union contract, the employees have no legal responsibility for any damage done to any packages that are not shipped as insured.

IcE · 10-29-2011, 05:01 | posts: 7,095 | Location: Toledo, Ohio

Quote:

Originally Posted by sykozis

3 were DOA, the other 2 BSOD'd while trying to install software and failed to be detected afterwards.... Maxtor's reputation for poor quality was hardly my fault..

UPS is real bad about throwing packages around.... Under their union contract, the employees have no legal responsibility for any damage done to any packages that are not shipped as insured.

I'd blame the store then because someone clearly dropped the box of them hard. I'm not saying Maxtor made their HDD's out of diamond but they weren't that bad.

Weiji · 10-10-2011, 14:21 | posts: 69 | Location: New Orleans

I recently had a 320gb WD fail on me after 4.5 years of power on hours. I dropped it a few times on my desk and slapped it back in. It worked for another 2 weeks (to retrieve the data) before failing agian. I pulled an 80gb WD drive from a friend's computer (still working) that had around 6 years of power on hours a few weeks ago.

On the other hand I've had 3 Seagate drives die right around 3 year of use each time and every Maxtor hdd I've had never lasted 1 year.

mmicrosysm · 10-12-2011, 18:18 | posts: 605 | Location: Box

Received one of my RMA drives from WD. DOA!!! Nice I guess checking drive before shipping it a little too much for them.

HamsterCrispy · 10-13-2011, 00:32 | posts: 761 | Location: Pacific Ring of Fire

Ive tried that too. My first purchase back then when i was upgrading my HDD was a Western Digital Blue 500 GB. - Dead On Arrival!

So i returned it and they gave me another one and after 1 day of working - it was not detected!

So i changed into a Seagate Barracuda and had no problems till today.

Thats why I also would not be getting WD's anymore. They used to be good back then, but lately ive been seeing a lot of issues with their low end HDDs (blue and greens)

sykozis · 10-13-2011, 01:13 | posts: 13,628 | Location: US East Coast

I still laugh every time I read threads like this one. The local pc shop here handles computers for doctors' offices, the military, nasa, and countless other companies. All they sell is WD harddrives. I've asked several times how often he sees drives fail and his response is always the same "On rare occassions."

mmicrosysm · 10-13-2011, 15:30 | posts: 605 | Location: Box

Quote:

Originally Posted by sykozis

I still laugh every time I read threads like this one. The local pc shop here handles computers for doctors' offices, the military, nasa, and countless other companies. All they sell is WD harddrives. I've asked several times how often he sees drives fail and his response is always the same "On rare occassions."

Well 3 in one month is not a rare occasion! This has so far exceeded any Seagate I've every RMA'd for personal or client use.

I talked to WD and they are sending me another drive Advanced RMA to me with a Pre-Paid Return shipping for the second defective HDD at no cost to me.

By the way I to am a PC repair shop and I see more WD failures then other drive manufactures here. One of the reason I very rarely purchase WD drives for my client repairs. I made an exception here and see what that got me and my clients. All three drives have an August 2011 manufacture date and are different models.

sykozis · 10-21-2011, 01:38 | posts: 13,628 | Location: US East Coast

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmicrosysm

Well 3 in one month is not a rare occasion! This has so far exceeded any Seagate I've every RMA'd for personal or client use.

I talked to WD and they are sending me another drive Advanced RMA to me with a Pre-Paid Return shipping for the second defective HDD at no cost to me.

By the way I to am a PC repair shop and I see more WD failures then other drive manufactures here. One of the reason I very rarely purchase WD drives for my client repairs. I made an exception here and see what that got me and my clients. All three drives have an August 2011 manufacture date and are different models.

I've dealt with 4 different local shops over the years and they've all told me the same thing... "If you want a drive that will last, buy WD". I've been using WD harddrives for nearly 20 years and I've only had 3 WD harddrives fail in that time. However, I've never seen a Maxtor drive last longer than 3 years (best case scenario) with most failing within the first 90 days. Hell, I personally had 5 fail within less than 8hrs (bought the first one Saturday morning, returned the 5th that same Saturday afternoon). My Crucial M4 256GB and M4 64GB are the first non-WD drives I've purchased in more than 10 years.

mmicrosysm · 10-21-2011, 20:59 | posts: 605 | Location: Box

Quote:

Originally Posted by sykozis

I've dealt with 4 different local shops over the years and they've all told me the same thing... "If you want a drive that will last, buy WD". I've been using WD harddrives for nearly 20 years and I've only had 3 WD harddrives fail in that time. However, I've never seen a Maxtor drive last longer than 3 years (best case scenario) with most failing within the first 90 days. Hell, I personally had 5 fail within less than 8hrs (bought the first one Saturday morning, returned the 5th that same Saturday afternoon). My Crucial M4 256GB and M4 64GB are the first non-WD drives I've purchased in more than 10 years.

I guess I'm getting all the good Seagates then or just happen to have good luck with them.

Been running my business since 1998 and see more WD failures over Seagate. I would trust a Quantum Fireball over WD LOL

nhlkoho · 10-13-2011, 16:14 | posts: 3,934 | Location: Washington DC

I've never had a WD drive fail on me. I've got at least 10 on a shelf and all of them still work.
I even plugged in the 20GB drive I bought back in 2001 last weekend and it's still going strong.