I will not buy any more WD drives. WD = Worst Drives

[cosmin]

Since September 2010:
1) Warranty replacement of 250GB with 250GB Blue. Crashed
2) Warranty replacement 250GB Blue with 1TB Black. Crashed
3) Warranty replacement of 1TB Black.
4) Bought another 1TB Black. Made RAID 1 with the above drive. Crashed yesterday
5) Bought 2TB Green. Crashed

6) Warranty replacement of 2TB Green.

7) Bought 250GB Blue notebook drive. Crashed

1) Warranty replacement of 250GB Blue.

Can't blame me that I did not try. No more comments.

[amloessb]

Sorry to hear.  I've only had one WD drive that was essentially DoA (and that was still after a few months that it died).  May I ask if you buy your drives from a retailer (e.g.: Fry's), or if you have them shipped to you direct (e.g.: Newegg)?  The reason I ask is that I know a lot of people who get DoA or almost-DoA drives after shipping with UPS.  I'm not sure if this is the case anymore, but UPS used to have a line in the fine print saying that your package could be subject to a drop of up to 6 feet (2m) during shipping.  I buy all of my drives from Newegg, and it is because of the aforementioned fine print that I always use FedEx for shipping.

Also, stay away from the Caviar Green series.  Far, FAR away.  (e.g.: this thread)

[cosmin]

I bought them directly from the retailer. In my entire professional life (20 years), I never seen so many failures in such a short period of time from the same manufacturer. I used to keep WD at high esteem and all my drives are WD. But since they changed into green / blue / black categories they are not what they used to be.

About handling, I do not think that dropping a packed/wrapped HDD from 2 meters can damage it. After all, WD is saying in the specifications that FAEX series can withstand 300G for 2ms when not operating. So dropping the drive cannot dammage it. It is just pure and simple BAD MANUFACTURING.

They should pey for all the data lost because of this. It is unnacceptable for a drive to crash in such a short period of time when you give 5 years warranty and "High performance, high capacity, best-in-class reliability, and cutting edge technology make up WD Caviar Black, the ideal drive for those who demand only the best" (bull**bleep**).

[rtguille]

Did all those drives failed with the same computer/system/place?

If it is so, then check your power supply. And also check for other special conditions,

like case vibration (same case?), temperature or humidity.

Also try another shop, you cannot know how bad they where handled.

What OS do you use (Win?/Linux?)?

Did there were some indication of failure, like an error or other ?

These are too many failures, seems almost like unreal.

PD: regardless of what anybody says, droping a hd to the floor is a forbiden act.

never do that, and if it happened by accident, proactively replace the drive, even if it

works. it is the only safe choise.

[cosmin]

Happened on 3 different systems. Notebook with WinXP/Win 7 32bit, desktop with WinXP/Win 7 32 bit, desktop with Win 7 64bit.

Power supply works great and all wall plugs in my office are protected from power supply spikes. On laptop it is no problem of power failure and on desktop I have 200 EUR value, 1000 Watt power supply + APC UPS.

Hard drives where not dropped or improper handled by me. I do not know how they where handled until I bought them and it is beyond my control. As far as I am concerned WD could had handled them improperly. Blaming handling to justify poor manufacturing it is a very convenient solution. HDDs were not born yesterday, everybody knows how to handle them. More of it, I have a constant and trusty supplier who is buying these components directly from the importer and I always pick up my orders in person.

The HDDs where changed imediatelly they had errors: bad sectors or suddenly not seen by the BIOS or windows

Funnny thing is that I went today with the 2 x 1 TB Black (both crashed in a RAID 1 on Saturday) to a specialised data recovery company to see if I can get back my data and they were going to reccommend me to buy a WD Black to save the recovered data. When they saw my drives they withdraw the reccommendation.

Another unpleasant thing after loosing my data it is that if they will need to crack open the drive in a dust free environment to retrieve data, I will loose my warranty. So I cannot change the drive or get any reimbursment. 5 year warranty and hundreds of dollars flushed down the toilet.

[oxter]

You will not loose your warranty, call WD tech support and inform them that you need to perform data recovery.

[cosmin]

@oxter:

I already called one of the authorised importers from Romania, warranty department, to inform them and to ask if I can open the drives to recover my data. They told me that I cannot open the drive and that they need the drive to be checked by their department and to justify the warranty replacement. Basicly, if I open the drive, I loose the warranty.

The thing is, in such drive failure cases, the more you play with the drive, the more you risk to not be able to recover your data. So no way I will let them check the drive before I recover my data.

I do not know what is your position in the WD company dear Oxter, but if you have such power I would very much appreciate if you inform Romanian WD importers or send me an official email that a customer can do this and that WD approve such practice so I can get drive replacement (even I prefer the money back) after I recover my data (I hope).

[cosmin]

Thank you for your advice, I just opened a ticket on WD Support

[oxter]

Im just a moderator. I was just quoting the WD replacement policies.

[RoofingGuy]

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cosmin wrote:

In my entire professional life (20 years), I never seen so many failures in such a short period of time from the same manufacturer.

---

You are using them with only a software RAID setup, right?

I just have to ask.

Because, being a professional, you would have noticed the:

* Business Critical RAID Environments – WD Caviar Green Hard Drives are not recommended for and are not warranted for use in RAID environments utilizing Enterprise HBAs and/or expanders and in multi-bay chassis, as they are not designed for, nor tested in, these specific types of RAID applications. For all Business Critical RAID applications, please consider WD’s Enterprise Hard Drives that are specifically designed with RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER), are tested extensively in 24x7 RAID applications, and include features like enhanced RAFF technology and thermal extended burn-in testing.

* Business Critical RAID Environments – WD Caviar Blue Hard Drives are not recommended for and are not warranted for use in RAID environments utilizing Enterprise HBAs and/or expanders and in multi-bay chassis, as they are not designed for, nor tested in, these specific types of RAID applications. For all Business Critical RAID applications, please consider WD’s Enterprise Hard Drives that are specifically designed with RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER), are tested extensively in 24x7 RAID applications, and include features like enhanced RAFF technology and thermal extended burn-in testing.

* Business Critical RAID Environments – WD Caviar Black Hard Drives are not recommended for and are not warranted for use in RAID environments utilizing Enterprise HBAs and/or expanders and in multi-bay chassis, as they are not designed for, nor tested in, these specific types of RAID applications. For all Business Critical RAID applications, please consider WD’s Enterprise Hard Drives that are specifically designed with RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER), are tested extensively in 24x7 RAID applications, and include features like enhanced RAFF technology and thermal extended burn-in testing.