Western Digital bearings quality questionable...

[lorlabnew]

Hello,

I wonder if it's just me, or anyone else observed lately somehow questionable quality of the Western Digital hard drives bearings (and drives itself as well) ? While I like new, working WDC drives a lot, they seem to stay in a good shape for a very short time these days.

Here is my example, in which all 3 WDC's I owned within the last six months are bad.

1/ purchased retail boxed WDC40BB in the summer; drive had unrecoverable errors within a week, and was eligible for RMA; I was able to pull-out and salvage the data after some effort.
2/ received replacement WDC40BB a few weeks later; the driver ran smooth for some 3 months of light use; a 2-3 weeks ago I noticed increased high-pitched noise; it didn't get any better but worse, so I RMA'd it yesterday; this drive didn't have errors, but the whine was headache source.
3/ purchased WDC80JB some 3 months ago and all was great; I just noticed (after some time away from this box) that the drive starts to develop same high-pitch noise as well; it's not constant yet, but irritating enough for me to fill another RMA form and ship it tomorrow. The high pitch is just kinda comming in waves now, later it will be constant and louder.

For comparison; from the newer products, I use IBM 60GXP 60GB & Seagate Barracuda IV 80GB for about a year in the same boxes, no problem at all with those drives, quiet. Got new Maxtor Series9, it's quiet but have it too short time to judge it's bearing quality. Have also several older drives (2-3 years) incl. WDC40AB, no problem.

I heard here before that low performance or overloaded PS could be a source of HDD failures. I don't think this is my case, since for one I use other drives in these different boxes with success, and don't use underpowered or crappy PS's usually. My drives don't run 24/7 . I have about 10 other old WDC drives, ranging in capacities from 170MB to 8.4GB, they are all loud and some of them whine bad, but those are really ones which had been in use for many years... I don't ecpect them to be silent. But new drives should stay quiet at least a year or two, particularly if not under daily extended use.

WD production from the second half of this year gives me a real headache. I'm going to call WD before this 3rd RMA within the half year, and ask their opinion as well, since I even don't know whether they are replacing "just noisy" drives...

Anyone alse with similar observations or experience?

thx
dave

 

[Lonyo]

I've had a 60BB working fine for about 8 months now I reckon, and an 80JB for a month or 2 I'd guess. No problems from eithre, dunno about noise, since I have 4 case fans and I run with the sides off my case.

 

[lorlabnew]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
I've had a 60BB working fine for about 8 months now I reckon, and an 80JB for a month or 2 I'd guess. No problems from eithre, dunno about noise, since I have 4 case fans and I run with the sides off my case.

Good for you.

Also, I forgot to mention in my post , that I have either 80mm fans in the drive cages installed to keep the temperature down, or the drives ae mounted in the 5.25" brackets , so there is plenty of air to circulate (no sandwitched drives, ever)....

dave

 

[Dowfen]

I have only purchased WD drives for years now. I can honestly say I have not had one fail requiring an RMA.

Just my case,

Eric

 

[microAmp]

Originally posted by: dowfen
I have only purchased WD drives for years now. I can honestly say I have not had one fail requiring an RMA.

Just my case,

Eric

Ditto for me too, and knocks on wood.

 

[lorlabnew]

Maybe I have REALLY bad luck this year, 3 WDC HDD's in the row....

I'm thinking to get another 1-2 Barracuda IV's instead, and give WDC's to friends (or enemies). The Maxtor Series9 is nice and fast, but louder in read/write then Barracuda IV I noticed. Guess that's why these Seagate drives don't get any cheaper, saw 80GB Barracuda at Fry's today for almost the same price as I paid a year ago

 

[GrumpyMan]

Originally posted by: motoamd

Originally posted by: dowfen
I have only purchased WD drives for years now. I can honestly say I have not had one fail requiring an RMA.

Just my case,

Eric

Ditto for me too, and knocks on wood.

Ditto for me also. I find it kind of strange how some people have hard drives fail on them so much where as others have never had a single problem. I wonder what the determining factor must be?

 

[Zebo]

2. Very Loud compared to seagates.

 

[Brian48]

I think WD must have had a bad run of the 40g model or something. I've never had any major problems with WD in my home PCs, although one of my 40g'ers does seem to make a slight noise while my other other don't. Can't say the same for work though. We had to RMA a few of the 40g models back this year. Wasn't many, but they were all WD 40g HDDs. We had no problems with all the other WD sizes and and brands.

 

[Tab]

This is sad news indeed. I hope their S-ATA drives wont have these problems.

 

[lorlabnew]

I wonder if the high-pitch problem I'm encountering is really not noticeable by others, for on reason or another... I'm trying to keep my boxes as quiet as possible; even when I install extra cooling (on 2 boxes with faster, P4 CPU's), I go with either thermal controlled, adjustable rpm, or low rpm fans... no case fan goes over 2500 rpm's - don't mind an increased "hum" in general, but can't stand high-pitch. I even called my wife to ask opinion, even she found the whining noise bothering enough to leave my room quickly.

 

[Daaavo]

I, too, wonder why some people have just horrible luck with hard drives. I've got a friend who always seems to have a hard disk that is making funny noises and then dying on him.


How secure is the attachment of the hard drive in your case? I mean, does the drive move at all once it's bolted down? Does your case itself vibrate?

Power supply?

 

[JHeiderman]

Every Western Digital drive that I have ever dealt with either in my own computers or a clients computer has failed... over the course of about 9 years that's been about 10 drives.

The really sad part....? I just purchased a 80gig JB with the 8megs of cache and I love it!!! Some people never learn ;-)

- J

On a side note.. I've never had a Maxtor fail on me.

 

[Submit]

Never had a WD driver fail on me. Even my really old 4 gig is still working fine. I did however have an IBM Deskstar 60g fail.

As far as noise the new Maxtor drives are almost silent.

 

[BentValve]

I too have had bad luck with WDs drives but I know its just that ..bad luck. Alot of people never have problems with their drives.

I wondered the same thing as you did but then I thought about it. ...I bought an 80gb se drive for about $90 after rebates and with tax. It has a 3 year warranty. That is $30 a year.
It would be in Western Digitals best interest to not have this drive or any other drive come in for warranty service. Everytime a drive comes back they just lost some man hours , a refurbed drive and shipping costs not to mention the 800# phone costs.

I bet only a small percentage of their drives break within the warranty period.....something that backs this up is the fact that they followed everyone else in lowering their basic drive warranty to only one year, however right off the bat they began offering a 2 year extension on the one year drives for only $19.95.

I have faith that I will eventually get a WD drive that lasts for 5 + years.

 

[lorlabnew]

Originally posted by: Daaavo
I, too, wonder why some people have just horrible luck with hard drives. I've got a friend who always seems to have a hard disk that is making funny noises and then dying on him.


How secure is the attachment of the hard drive in your case? I mean, does the drive move at all once it's bolted down? Does your case itself vibrate?

Power supply?

Talking about the latest drive (WDC80JB); perfectly secured, no movement (it's mounted in the removable HDD cage, cooled from the front with 80mm low-rpm fan). Case itself won't vibrate neither, pretty heavy piece of hardware (Antex SX1030 SOHO server case). Power supply - Antec PP303XP rated 300W (3.3/5/12V rails -> 20/30/15A; combined output of 3 rails 278W). Using 2 HDD, 2 optical drives, 3 low-rpm 80mm case fans (+1 in PS itself), GF3Ti200 AGP video, 2 x 256MB Samsung PC800 RDRAM. Cooling excellent all over the case. Before I purchased this WDC80JB, I had 60GXP in the same position, sharing the cage with Barracuda IV, for about 9 months with no noise problems or any other anomalies...

That's all, since audio, LAN & USB 1.1 are on motherboard (Intel D850MVL with P4 1.6A).

dave

 

[BentValve]

Antec PP303XP rated 300W

Funny how we are both having trouble with WD drives and we both have the same PS.

 

[lorlabnew]

Originally posted by: BentValve

Antec PP303XP rated 300W

Funny how we are both having trouble with WD drives and we both have the same PS.

Yeah (in case of 80JB), but I had both 40BB's to get sick in other 2 boxes... so don't think it's the Antec. Btw, for my newest rig I upgraded the 300w Antec (have 2 identical cases) to 350w Antec SL350; just to be sure I have the juice....

 

[zephyrprime]

According to storagereview, the BB's have pretty low reliability compared to other drives. The JB's are a lot better.

 

[arcenite]

My WD1200BB makes that annoying whine that I can barely hear over my case fan. I was thinking about replacing my case fan w/ a quieter fan, but now i've decided to keep it to muffle that ear piercing noise lol.

Bill

 

[lorlabnew]

I was searching Western Digital Knowledge Base, and found a note about this noise (searched with the keyword "whining noise"):

How can I tell if my drive noises are normal or the sign of a problem?

Question
How can I tell if my drive noises are normal or the sign of a problem?

Answer
Current hard drive technology dictates that some noise will occur during drive operation. The type of noise and the volume of the noise can change depending on the current function that the drive is involved in. It is important to recognize which noises indicate trouble and which are simply normal drive sounds.


Normal drive sounds include:

Whining noise during drive spin-up
Occasional clicks during data access
Hard clicks during a head park operation (shutdown or sleep mode)


Abnormal drive sounds include:

High-pitched whining sound
Vibration sounds due to either vibration in the mounting hardware or in rare cases, a drive failure
Clicking or clunking sounds that occur repeatedly
Grinding sounds

Solutions:

To make sure it is not a case fan or other device, remove both the power and data cables from the drive with the system powered off. Apply power to the system to see if the noise continues.
If so, with the system powered off, connect only the power cable to the drive, and power up the computer, to see if the noise persists. If not, the drive is likely not at fault.
If the noise still occurs, assure that your data cable is functional (try a new one if available) and no longer than 18 inches, with a maximum of 6 inches between connectors.
Apply power to the drive after removing it from its current location. Either install it into a different drive bay or place it securely on an anti-static surface if available. If noise stops in either scenario, the original drive bay was not properly supporting the hard drive.
Test the drive in a different system if possible.
If, after testing with the above methods, the drive noises are determined to be abnormal, the drive should be replaced if under warranty.

So, I believe they are at WD well aware of this sound, and suggesting replacement (after some generic troubleshooting above). I will give a one last shot to the replaced drives when I'll get them back, if I'll run into it again, I'll definitely switch to other brands (Seagate, Maxtor), which don't have this problem.

For accuracy and to be fair to WD, I bought some time ago IBM 60GXP (my 2nd one), and it had this whining noise present since I plugged it in first time; I returned it the same afternoon to the store where I bought it (have also 2 newer 2.5" IBM's with fluid bearing motors; while noisy during read/write as all IBM's are I believe, are otherwise perfectly quiet when idling).

dave

 

[CraigRT]

WD still has it's problems.
I can hardly trust ANY HD manufacturers.

the only drives I fully trust are Fujitsu and Seagate.

 

[BentValve]

I posted this in another thread as well but I noticed that my just RMAed 300BB replacment looks quite different in the motor section, its at least (I dod not measure but I wish I had) 3mm-5mm thicker.
Its clear the design was changed , my remanufactured drive is dated 11/02

 

[BentValve]

pic of new motor area

 

[Ilmater]

I've got 5 hard drives. a 17.2GB and 40GB Maxtor, and 3 80GB WD's. I know I'm going to jinx myself here, so I'm knocking on my desk as I type this, but the only one to ever fail was the 40GB Maxtor, and it was DOA. I sent it back, got a different one, and haven't had problems since. None of them make a whining noise. I used to have the computer in a place wehre it was right next to my head, and since I had no fans blowing on any of them, I had the side of the case open. However, they still ran hotter than I'd like. However, I've never had problems with a drive that has been used in my computer. I have had two drives fail that belonged to friends. One was an IBM 75GXP (go figure) and one was a WD 800BB. However, whereas the IBM simply ceased working, the WD just started making a screeching sound. It's not a whine, it's more like fingers on a chalkboard (or heads on a disk?). I find WD's to be generally reliable. I don't think that hard drives, other than the obvious IBM problems, are very unreliable in and of themselves, it's just luck of the draw.