WD Black 1TB...prone to failure?

[MBrown]

I was looking at picking this up especially since it has a 15% discount on it right now, but after looking at the customer reviews it seems a lot of people have been having some quick failures with them. Has anyone of you guys had any recent problems for this drive? What drive do you recommend for storing games on then if this one isn't a good option?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136533

 

[corkyg]

Have not seen much evidence of failures with the 1TB or 500GB. Should be AOK for games.

 

[Anteaus]

Those are some of the best drives being sold today. Go for it. All HDD have failure rates so try not too think too much about it. Statistically, buyers are more likely to post a review after having a negative experience versus a positive one, so you have to take that into consideration. I have had nothing but positive experiences with multiple black series drives over the past few years.

The drive itself aside, there have been concerns over how Newegg handles bare drives in shipping which has potentially caused DOA. I personally don't buy bare drives anymore unless there is a big price difference, but take that as you will. I'm not suggesting you not buy a bare drive...I just want you to be aware that it possibly could account for some of the problems.

 

[E6700]

I have this one. 7k+hours without issue. it has 5 years warranty so you shouldn't be worry.

 

[thelastjuju]

It does seem to have slightly more negative reviews than its predecessor, the WD1001FALS. It had 73% highest rating possible : 10% lowest rating possible. This newer model, only 58% highest rating possible : 15% lowest rating possible.

Its true though that people are definitely more likely to review a bad drive than to review a good drive. But even still, when a drive doesn't receive disproportionately negative reviews its always a good sign. But these numbers aren't all that alarming at all. 33% lowest rating possible with the WD Green 3tb, now that's alarming!

I have one of these new models too though, and my only complaint is its noticeably louder than the old model.

 

[Soulkeeper]

I have 2x 1TB blacks FAEX, no problem
When I first got them one died, they replaced it quickly and I havn't had a problem since.
11502 and 14434 power on hours so far here

 

[Elixer]

While they were pretty good in the past, no idea if the new factories are up to snuff yet, there still may be bad batches floating around...
I still prefer WD over Seagate though.

 

[Anteaus]

33% lowest rating possible with the WD Green 3tb, now that's alarming!

Yes those drives had an horrific launch with bad firmware that bricked numerous drives with excessive head parking. Fortunately, the problem has been completely solved and all current drives are fine. Unfortuntely, all the bad reviews from early on are still there so there is a stigmata. Sad really because I have 2 of them and they are solid, if a bit slow.

 

[C1]

While they were pretty good in the past, no idea if the new factories are up to snuff yet, there still may be bad batches floating around...
I still prefer WD over Seagate though.

My view is that there is something to this. Ive been watching certain WD notebook drives on NE with previous 5 star ratings (large sample too) which were unavailable because of the floods. Now that they've again become available, the most recent reviews report as problematic. So much so that the overall large sample based rating has been averaged down to 4 stars. Lots more failures being reported - DOAs as well as early failures after 1 thru 6 months of use.

Might be noth'n to it, but the average rating HAS declined. I therefore prefer and have instead searched for pre-flood manufactured units (preferably made in Malaysia) and have not been disappointed. In such case, one has to accept the older technology (ie, non-AFT) units.

 

[weevilone]

Yes those drives had an horrific launch with bad firmware that bricked numerous drives with excessive head parking. Fortunately, the problem has been completely solved and all current drives are fine. Unfortuntely, all the bad reviews from early on are still there so there is a stigmata. Sad really because I have 2 of them and they are solid, if a bit slow.

What was corrected in the later firmware? They're still head parking like crazy, though I've not really seen complaints about failures being bad lately.

 

[Anteaus]

http://www.mswhs.com/2012/04/wd-caviar-green-hdd-intellipark-fix/

http://www.instantfundas.com/2011/12/intellipark-makes-western-digital-green.html

This was the primary issue. The problem was also made worse by people sticking them in Raid 5 arrays in which they were never supposed to be. The bottom line is that while the head parking issue was important and had to be dealt with, there was nothing inheriently wrong with the design of the drive. It was almost completely a firmware issue.

My personal belief is that WD knew about the potential problem but wrongly assumed that it wouldn't be as critical as it ended up being. They just wanted to brag about the power savings and the aggressive power management seems to back that up.

The newer drives still park more than older drives, but not near as much as the first initial shipments. These are supposed to be energy efficient drives after all. They are ideal for storage drives where they are used intermittely. I would never use one for a system drive. Black Series all the way for that.

I am really interested in the new Red series though.

 

[gsilver]

I've had two go bad entirely (one this year, one in 2009), and another begin to report errors (this year), so I retired it. Needless to say, I make backups of everything now.

I started in 2009 after the first one went out, and most of my data loss this year was a result of me getting behind on the backups. Never forget is all I can say.

Then again, I can't say if that's any worse than normal...

 

[weevilone]

The newer drives still park more than older drives, but not near as much as the first initial shipments. These are supposed to be energy efficient drives after all. They are ideal for storage drives where they are used intermittely. I would never use one for a system drive. Black Series all the way for that.

I am really interested in the new Red series though.

Thanks for the info. I had a 2TB Green hosting my iTunes library with the head park defeated, and it just died about 2 weeks ago. WD was nice enough to send me a brand new replacement drive via RMA (not refurb, and manufactured August 12th I think it was) but it was still configured to park the drive at 8 seconds. I don't think that's any different than the old one.

I set this one for 5 minutes and am just using it as an internal backup drive for Crashplan.

 

[Bill Brasky]

I have a 1tb fals and faex. Both have been totally solid fwiw.

 

[Seven]

The 1TB FALS is running strong in my rig with about 30K hours.

 

[imagoon]

3 x 1TB Blacks running for 3ish years now (24x7) one died. WD replaced it. Seems fine to me.

 

[jjsbasmt]

Running 24/7 a little over 2 years and no issues other than occasional noise.

 

[pauldun170]

Every WD black I've ever purchased (going back to 2008) is still running strong.
I use them all on regular basis (6 total 2x TB drives and 4 500gb drives)

I expect them all to crash into flames and exploding unicorns when the 5 year warranty is up

 

[murphyc]

I think this thread is kinda dumb. Every model has batches, and within batches there are subtle changes in manufacturing that no one is privy to. So we really have no idea at all what a particular disk's failure potential is going to be. No idea at all, and it's pure speculation for people to be asking let alone giving answers on drive reliability. And the negative reviews are by definition not a scientific sample.

Second, this head parking complaining that still goes on is a neurosis. There's no research indicating that frequent head parking is causing premature actuator failure that exceeds the positive effects of frequent head parking: the head flying over the surface of the disk in a non-landing zone is at much higher risk of hitting the surface or surface defects, as well as getting build-up of various lubricants floating around inside the enclosure. So again all of this "frequent head parking is bad, mkay" is just ridiculous and people should stop doing it. It's armchair disk drive engineering speculation.

 

[murphyc]

Worst post:

Yes those drives had an horrific launch with bad firmware that bricked numerous drives with excessive head parking.

Correlation is not causation. If you have data proving two things: that there is such a thing as excessive head parking, what the threshold it, and why; and that such excessive head parking caused a certain drive model at launch to result in numerous disk failures, then you should provide the data. I am happy to eat crow in the face of facts. What I'm reading here is unadulterated speculation.

WTF post:

I had a 2TB Green hosting my iTunes library with the head park defeated, and it just died about 2 weeks ago. WD was nice enough to send me a brand new replacement drive via RMA

Had they had a way to find out you'd defeated an integral engineering feature in the drive, they'd be within rights to reject the warranty claim. The head was certainly spending way too much time floating above areas it should have been spending less time at. When lubricant builds up on the head, and you don't let it park the build up isn't removed, and eventually you get write failures because the excessive lubricant build up affects flying height. That and many other possibilities like head strikes on the surface, or particulate impacting the head or getting stuck between the head and surface for a short period, etc.

Best, most useful quote of the thread:

I expect them all to crash into flames and exploding unicorns when the 5 year warranty is up