Poll: How Reliable are Western Digital Hard Drives?

[CDRecorder]

Please post how satisfied you have been with your WD drive(s) and how long it (they) lasted. Thanks!

[CDRecorder]

My first one died in 2 weeks; its replacement lasted about 1.5 years (and had problems before it died).

[aviationwiz]

VERY POOR. Thier tech support sucks. I had to have Maxtor help me with my WD HDD.

NEVER HAVE A WD AND A MAXTOR IN THE SAME SYSTEM. THE WD IS TO INFERIOR AND IT WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS.

Do yourself a favor and go with Maxtor.

[lightningbaron]

Poor, I had multiple Western Digital drives that failed within the first year. After WD, I switched over to Seagate, I haven't had a single drive manufactured by Seagate failing since 1999. However, I have given WD a second chance recently with the 8MB cache drives mainly for the 3 years warranty.

[liteonrules]

i had 30gb 5400rpm fail after 1 year with bad sectors but thier tech support was wonderful to me, in fact, they sent me back a 40 gb 7200rpm but i've only had for 6 months and it has not failed yet.

[aviationwiz]

I had a WD drive fail on me after 1 hour. The tech support was crappy. They refused to help me. I later called up Maxtor and asked them for help. They were more than happy to help me and they suggested going out and exchanging the WD for a Maxtor. I did just that, and, It works. That drive is still working now after 3 years.

In fact, I'm going to give Maxtor business again soon with one of thier Atlas SCSI Drives.

[Shaman]

Poor, I had multiple Western Digital drives that failed within the first year. After WD, I switched over to Seagate, I haven't had a single drive manufactured by Seagate failing since 1999. However, I have given WD a second chance recently with the 8MB cache drives mainly for the 3 years warranty.

I too had a problem with a WD that was beginning to show signs of trouble, got rid of it, and from then on only bought IBM and Maxtor, both in the same computer with no problems. But just purchased a WD1200JB for similar reasons that lightningbaron stated. The reviews were very positive and brand new, it is whisper quiet and very fast. The other hard drive is still the Maxtor 17.1. The installation for the WD and copying from the source older 2 partitions of the IBM 14.4 hard drive, which has never given me a problem, was perfect and painless. So far so good. But hate the thought of wondering if...

[vbl117]

I have one WD 40 GO drive since a year and i had not any problems . When you go in some hard drives forums some had many problems with WD whereas some had not any problem . According to forums It seems that at same specification , WD hard drives produce more heat that other well known brands .
I have too a 20 GO Seagate hard drive since more than 2 years and i had not any problems with it ( Seagate was the cheapest brand and had a good reputation ) .
I have bought a WD hard drive knowing it was not the better drive ( it was the worse of all famous manufacturers , i think ) but i would not buy an IBM/HITACHI drive today .
My last hard drive is a 80 GO Seagate hard drive and it works well too .

One thing that i have always loved in both my 20 GO and 80 GO Seagate is their "SeaShield" which protects electronics components below the hard drive from ESD and physical damage .

By the way , all my computers are cooled with two fans ( and i had a special small ineffective cooler for the 20 GO Seagate ) .

How do you , guys , cool/ventilate your cases ?

[tazdevl]

VERY POOR. Thier tech support sucks. I had to have Maxtor help me with my WD HDD.

NEVER HAVE A WD AND A MAXTOR IN THE SAME SYSTEM. THE WD IS TO INFERIOR AND IT WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS.

Do yourself a favor and go with Maxtor.

Maxtor D740x's & WD Special Ed's coexisting in the same box quite happily.

I think one thing folks are taking into consideration is poor packing if you buy them from a merchant and have them shipped. Can't blame the manufacturer if the merchant doesn't take proper care before shipping.

WD drives are a hell of a lot better than IBM 60/75GXPs.

Re: Maxtor, one thing you might not know/realize is that the components (pickup heads etc..) and FW in the drives (same model) can vary greatly. Don't know about you, but that doesn't assure me of the quality of their drives... even though I've had zero problems with mine.

According to forums It seems that at same specification , WD hard drives produce more heat that other well known brands .

I suggest you head over to Storagereview.com and hit the database button, do a comparison... you might be surprised when looking at comparable drive temps (look at similar featuresets and capacities)... they're pretty much the same temps as comparable drives. I don't know what forums you're reading, but Storagereview is the top HD site on the net.

Most problems folks have with drive failure (7200RPM) is insufficient cooling. One of those things that gets overlooked, like being sure to buy a decent PSU with your box (which can also be the cause of HD failure).

Ventilation-> Papst fans throughout, 2 intake, 1 exhaust, 92MM blowhole up top, Enermax fans replaced as well.

[aviationwiz]

I think one thing folks are taking into consideration is poor packing if you buy them from a merchant and have them shipped. Can't blame the manufacturer if the merchant doesn't take proper care before shipping.

I buy all my Hard Drives in a retail store such as Best Buy, Comp USA, Circuit City, and Micro Center.

I never plan on buying a Hard Drive online.

[vbl117]

VERY POOR. Thier tech support sucks. I had to have Maxtor help me with my WD HDD.

According to forums It seems that at same specification , WD hard drives produce more heat that other well known brands .

I suggest you head over to Storagereview.com and hit the database button, do a comparison... you might be surprised when looking at comparable drives (you want to look at similar featuresets and capacities)... they're pretty much the same temps as comparable drives. I don't know what forums you're reading, but Storagereview is the top HD site on the net.

I am speaking about Storage Review forum and a special thread that i looked a year ago . I suggest you to listen users too ....

[vbl117]

Most problems folks have with drive failure (7200RPM) is insufficient cooling. One of those things that gets overlooked, like being sure to buy a decent PSU with your box (which can also be the cause of HD failure).

Ventilation-> Papst fans throughout, 2 intake, 1 exhaust, 92MM blowhole up top, Enermax fans replaced as well.

I tend to agree with the fact a good cooling is necessary . Perhaps a good PSU too . But i am not really convinced . I had a dying power supply for months and had no failure at all ( but i was becoming deaf So i had to replace it ) .
I think the main factor is temperature .

[tazdevl]

VERY POOR. Thier tech support sucks. I had to have Maxtor help me with my WD HDD.

According to forums It seems that at same specification , WD hard drives produce more heat that other well known brands .

I suggest you head over to Storagereview.com and hit the database button, do a comparison... you might be surprised when looking at comparable drives (you want to look at similar featuresets and capacities)... they're pretty much the same temps as comparable drives. I don't know what forums you're reading, but Storagereview is the top HD site on the net.

I am speaking about Storage Review forum and a special thread that i looked a year ago . I suggest you to listen users too ....

Database has empirical results... can't argue with that. Eugene tests temps in a consistent manner. What did he find? JB's do not run hotter than the other ATA drives. I believe his word over any other forum member.

Forums are a great place to learn, get help and exchange ideas, but a lot of folks that get on forums bitch about products or don't know what they're talking about, so you get a disproportionate number of negative and uninformed comments. I suggest you take things with a grain of salt when you read comments in the forums. Also, might want to check out the SR reliability survey as well and see how WD fares. The Special Ed drives do fairly well against the BB models which were more problematic.

I generally use HD's from 2 manufacturers to help mitigate any risk of catastrophic failure.

[vbl117]

VERY POOR. Thier tech support sucks. I had to have Maxtor help me with my WD HDD.

According to forums It seems that at same specification , WD hard drives produce more heat that other well known brands .

I suggest you head over to Storagereview.com and hit the database button, do a comparison... you might be surprised when looking at comparable drives (you want to look at similar featuresets and capacities)... they're pretty much the same temps as comparable drives. I don't know what forums you're reading, but Storagereview is the top HD site on the net.

I am speaking about Storage Review forum and a special thread that i looked a year ago . I suggest you to listen users too ....

Database has empirical results... can't argue with that. Eugene tests temps in a consistent manner. What did he find? JB's do not run hotter than the other ATA drives. I believe his word over any other forum member.

Forums are a great place to learn, get help and exchange ideas, but a lot of folks that get on forums bitch about products or don't know what they're talking about, so you get a disproportionate number of negative and uninformed comments. I suggest you take things with a grain of salt when you read comments in the forums. Also, might want to check out the SR reliability survey as well and see how WD fares. The Special Ed drives do fairly well against the BB models which were more problematic.

I generally use HD's from 2 manufacturers to help mitigate any risk of catastrophic failure.

In all cases can you be agree with me when i say that WD are less reliable than Seagate and Maxtor ? Be clear . I don't remember well , but in all cases if WD drives are among the less reliable , there must be an explanation . Special edition drives are the same drives with more cache and different bios optimisation ( server optimisation ) so i don't think they can be more reliable ( i bet people buying them take more care of these hard drives because they are experienced ) .
Also if you read my posts u ll see i am not a GENUINE man . But when a lot of men says they had problems with WD i listen , if these drives have higher temperatures or tolerate less high temperatures it would result the same .
Also most of those who had not problem at all had good cooling .

How do you explain the fact WD drives lacks reliability ?

[vbl117]

I will not reply anymore to you because this is a never ending speaking and we don't think in a similar way ( though i must say i believe too in empiric facts and interpretation ) .
A database made by some users reports can be very good ( not perfect ) , indeed . It's true i don't read them and i am wrong in this ( nobody is perfect ) .
Forums reports are good too ( i am aware that they require a lot of interpretation and scepticism ) .
Self experience is also a good teacher but i never had an hard drive failure ( still have a 6 GO IBM hard drive from good IBM period in perfect shape ) .
Also i must say that thought i am not a sucker ( i believe i am not ) my memory is not perfect and i can distort some facts .

To resume my thoughts , WD drives have a lower reliability than Seagate and Maxtor hard drives but a better reliability than IBM/HITACHI hard drives . So it can be a good buy . And i have nothing against them since i bought one WD ( because it was cheapest and easier to find than Seagate at that time ) .

As for brand , you cannot say that drives manufactured by the same brand will have a failure at the same time ( it is very unlikely ) . So i don't think it is useful to use drives from more than one brand on your computer ( not necessary but some people love to make some comparison and it is a good thing ) . I guess you back up your OS and data on your secondary hard drive . I am too lazy for this , i must recognise .


See You Soon !

[BuddhaTB]

WD is about average in my opinion unless you get the SE modesl wit hthe 8MB cache. The SE models are better WD products than their non SE hard drive.

I personally perfer Maxtor. I really like the D740X I'm using currently. I've also heard that Seagate is pretty good too, even though they don't have as many hard drive models as Maxtor and WD do. The only thing I don't like is how WD and Maxtor have lowered the warranty time on their drives. They should make all hard drive have a 3 year warranty regardless if its a high end one or not.

Maxtor, Seagate, and WD are far better than IBM drives.

[MonteLDS]

let see i have 3 WD drives. 2 of which are 8MB buffer (my raid). and they seem to be okay. Maxtor I have had problems with. a recent 80 gig drive died, and that is why I havea seagate 80 gig drive

I have also seen many of maxtor dirves die on other friends. Not heard of a WD death from friends, except from 1 client. And ya that is it.

it all seems to be on luck i think

[tazdevl]

Bah I'm not quoting any more. Getting too long. This is starting to sound like the UN talk on Iraq.

WD less reliable than Seagate... yes. Maxtor... no. They are both probably on par... in my experience.

FYI, the SE drives are beefed up a bit.

You are correct, all 7200 RPM HDs don't like heat and as you said, a lot of folks just don't plain know what they're doing. Can't blame the manufacturer for user error when most would fail in a similar situation.

I'd also put more faith in the reliability survey because people try to be objective and keep emotion out of their comments... which generally does not happen in the forums.

The majority of forum comments are all negative so you can't use that as the basis for comparison, since you have no idea how many people are satisfied with their drives... they aren't making comments... not to mention how many drives in total for each manufacturer are out there. What I mean is that percentage-wise, while there might be a lot of WD comments in the forums, if you look at the total number of drives they have out there relative to others... it could be less than the percentage for another manufacturer.

What you can do is use the forums to identify some common problems for the drives, but if you at them across manufacturers, there's a common theme. You are right, I'm sure heat is one of the bigger issues.

The database is done by Eugene, who last time I checked, was an expert on hard drives. That's where I quote my information from.

As someone else mentioned... it's kind of like buying a CPU to overclock... just the luck of the draw.

Buddha... the WD Special Ed drives have a 3 year warranty. New WD SATA drive has a 5 year warranty and MTBF of 1.2MM hours.
You are right about Seagate not having enough choices on the market. Also it'd be nice if they'd bump their warranty to more than 1 year. I'd like to pick up a 160GB+ SATA drive, their largest one is 120GB at the moment, so if Maxtor can get a drive on the market, I'm picking one up.

[David]

I am currently running two WD 80GB 7200 RPM HDs and have never had a problem with either one. One of the drives actually replaced a 20GB 7200 RPM Maxtor that suddenly decided to die one day while still under warranty. As for WD tech support I have never needed to call. These are not the first WD HDs which I have owned the previous drives never had a problem either.

[Big_H]

From my own personal experience, WD are the best drives out there. But I haven't had much experience with other brands.

I'm running a WD100GB SE and a WD80GB non-SE, both work great. The 80GB I've had for almost two years, no problems.
WD customer service is great! A friend had his WD200GB die a week after he got it, he emailed WD, they replaced the drive, took all of a week.
Most of my friends run WDs, they've never had problems with them.

I've had a 20GB Seagate die on me (the reason I got the 80GB), and an old Maxtor kick the bucket.
Then again, the 4GB Maxtor (5200RPM) in my parents computer has been going for like 4 years.

It's all a crap shoot. WD and Maxtor are both good brands. Some people have just had bad experiences with one or the other. Hard drives die, it's more based on luck and how the user treats it, than poor quality (at least between WD and Maxtor).

[BuddhaTB]

Buddha... the WD Special Ed drives have a 3 year warranty. New WD SATA drive has a 5 year warranty and MTBF of 1.2MM hours.
You are right about Seagate not having enough choices on the market. Also it'd be nice if they'd bump their warranty to more than 1 year. I'd like to pick up a 160GB+ SATA drive, their largest one is 120GB at the moment, so if Maxtor can get a drive on the market, I'm picking one up.

I knew about the 3 year warranty for WD SE drives. I just forgot to mention it in my post. However, thanks for the warranty info on the serial ATA drives. And yes, Seagate needs more hard drive choices.

[Turkeyscore.com]

I haven't seen any problems with WD hard drives. I was needing a hard drive and was planning on getting the first hard drive with a satisfactory deal (Seagate, IBM, WD, Maxtor). I picked up a 120gb Maxtor with an 8mb cache. Very nice, only 114 gbs though.
(/putting extra fan with hard drives)

[TheWizard]

More praise for WD! I've had a WD 120GB 2MB Cache hard drive for a little while now and it's serving me well. I also have a 4 year-old WD 27GB drive that has given me no problems at all...and I still use it daily!

My vote for WD reliability: Above Average