New HDD has persistent spikes in HDTUNE

[An00bis]

WD10EZEX drive brand new

I did like 10 tests, in safemode as well, not that it would matter since the drive is empty besides a few text files i moved on it, and the results are always like this, but sometimes the drops are more pronounced, like 10MBps low, but the positions remain constant on that graph.

Should I worry about this? My older failing drive that has a few bad sectors and is so broken that WD's diagnosis tool wont even run on it doesn't have any drop, and I also have another newer WD drive that also behaves perfectly fine and I set it as my OS drive, no drops.

Please reply fast I have to send it back today. I'm currently zeroing it so I can send it back.

I've heard some rumors that the this WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 is usually faulty and worse than the WD10EZEX-00RKKA0 (I have that one and it works perfectly fine).


proof they're consistent and not random, caused by programs (or windows, search indexing is disabled and drive is empty, so theres no reason for this to happen)

(as you can see this was made in safe mode, note the disabled win7 theme)

 

[mike5757]

My WD10EZEX-00RKKA0 looks exactly like that in HD Tune. Even though you disabled most of the utilities that would be accessing it, I'm sure Windows has other crap accessing it. I doubt it's anything to be worried about. If you're still concerned, you could make a live Linux CD or USB and test it using the disk utility in there.

EDIT: Never mind, I just noticed you mentioned the drops are consistent between runs. Mine does not do that.

 

[DownTheSky]

That's my experience aswell. WD10EZEX

Can you confirm performance not up-to-par and hang-ups?

 

[An00bis]

That's my experience aswell. WD10EZEX

Can you confirm performance not up-to-par and hang-ups?

I think it depends on the revision, I have another WD10EZEX-00RKKA0 and that one has no problems whatsoever, works perfectly smooth I have it for almost a year and it's still very silent. I think the one I have now is a newer model, you can see the complete model name in the images I uploaded.
This new one I haven't got the chance to test really well. I sawpped 1tb of data and now that I noticed problems I wiped that and wrote 0s on it and stopped using it.

I noticed a very annoying thing a few minutes ago though. I just finishing zeroing it to prepare it for RMA and I noticed that now when it's completely wiped and idle, it has an annoying metallic sound that it makes until I give it some work to do (benchmarks or whatever). I guess the sound can be compared to spinning a bumpy disk and touching it with nail, but not that loud, it's like a normal HDD sound but faint and monotonous, it isn't like CRR crrrrrr crrr crr cr CCRRRR it's more like CRCRCRCRCRCRCRCRCRCRCRCRCRCRCRCR with a high frequency.
Haven't noticed this thing on my 2 other HDDs.
This is even weirder, the sound is faint so I'm sure the newer drive is causing it, I manually stopped the front fan and I can still heart it so it's not a faulty fan or anything. Also, HDtune tells me that windows and the programs installed don't use it at all, I see no activity on that graph besides windows writing/reading a few kilobytes every few seconds or so but that shouldn't cause an audible sound, it doesn't in my other HDDs.
Now this is some weird shit, not only does any work interrupt that noise, but even checking SMART values makes the noise stop for a few seconds. This is a really weird drive.

 

[BFG10K]

Try deleting all the partitions and running the test again.

 

[An00bis]

Try deleting all the partitions and running the test again.

I get the same results. If I modify the test settings in hdtune and make it run over a long period of time to increase accuracy the spikes become less noticeable but they're still present. That repeated clicking noise stopped but still it was very weird, it probably had something to do with the HDD itself not windows since why would checking SMART values stop that idle noise?
I hope the shop I got it from agrees to replace it and doesn't just check the SMART values (which are okay) and refuse to do anything about it.

 

[An00bis]

I sent the HDD to the place I got it from. I really hope they dont return it to me without having done anything, I mean if you look at those graphs something is clearly wrong with this HDD, and it also had that problem where it clicked repeatedly even if it was in idle or had no partitions on it. WD's tool told me the drive's fine but I can't really trust it, apart from bad sectors and SMART values I don't think it checks anything else.

 

[GMasonDragonDad]

I have multiple hard drives from multiple systems going back 10+ years and all have the same goofy pattern as yours. from an old ATA 250 gig on winxp (A64)-> 2tb WD red on Win7 64 on my Core i7.

 

[An00bis]

I have multiple hard drives from multiple systems going back 10+ years and all have the same goofy pattern as yours. from an old ATA 250 gig on winxp (A64)-> 2tb WD red on Win7 64 on my Core i7.

I think you're right, I just though it was weird that this new drive was doing what my older, failing wd10EALX wasn't. I can't even scan that WD10EALX anymore with WD's tools, and apparently it preforms a lot better compared to this drive.

I did RMA it though, I got a newer one but it's still the same model, same firmware and it makes the same annoying noise when idle. What should I do? Should I rma or is this rattling/repeated clicking noise normal when idle? even checking the SMART values makes the noise go away for about a second, so the problem is 100% with that HDD.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I did RMA it though, I got a newer one but it's still the same model, same firmware and it makes the same annoying noise when idle. What should I do? Should I rma or is this rattling/repeated clicking noise normal when idle? even checking the SMART values makes the noise go away for about a second, so the problem is 100% with that HDD.

It may be doing idle-time surface scans, or just shifting the head around, so it doesn't wear in one place.

 

[An00bis]

It may be doing idle-time surface scans, or just shifting the head around, so it doesn't wear in one place.

Everything's OK? I guess it has to be since this new HDD is the same as the other one that I RMA'd. But the guys at WD did agree to RMA it so they probably see something was wrong about it. I don't really know.

So I guess I shouldn't worry about it and keep using this HDD?

Graph of the newer one, it has the same pattern but i chose the lowest speed for this test, I saw that the spikes are still present but when I lower the speed they get less noticeable. Still on the older HDD, the WD10EALX that was released in like 2010 I think, this problem isn't present.

burst rate is the same, 200-320MB/s but I guess in this test was lower because I already transferred 1tb of data to it.

 

[An00bis]

So, should I return this one as well? it has the same weird behavior. Please reply fast I need to know if it's a good HDD so I can send the older one to RMA before warranty runs out!

 

[PeterMac83]

Do you resolved problem with this spikes on WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 ?

I want to buy exaclty same hard disk WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 and don't know now is this drive is ok or is fault ?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Do you resolved problem with this spikes on WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 ?

I want to buy exaclty same hard disk WD10EZEX-00BN5A0 and don't know now is this drive is ok or is fault ?

I have an 00RKKA0 which I use for media file storage, video capture, etc.

Of all the Blue drives I've used -- I have several and some for backup in hot-swap caddies -- never had one fail so far.