WD Black Reliability?

[kavefish]

Hi everyone!

I have had two WD Black drives either fail or act up within 19 months of each other. I purchased a 1TB Black in June 2012 and it failed completely (no spin up) in October 2013. I immediately replaced it with a 2TB Black while the other was being RMA'd, and over the last few weeks I have heard the 2TB drive stutter and beep occasionally when reading data from the disk. I didn't know they beep?!

The disks have been used for storage only, and I also use it to hold a couple of VMs that are used a couple of times per month. Overall, the disk is hardly used. I was always under the impression that WD Black drives were supposed to be a prosumer product with increased reliability over their typical, cheaper consumer products. However I have had two act up within 19 months, and am almost scared to use it. The RMA'd 1TB Black has been sitting in a box since October, and now I'm not sure I want to use it. For the past couple of years I have been pro-WD and anti-Seagate, but my experiences have been the opposite.

Has anyone had similar failures with WD Blacks? I'm getting ready to build a 24TB NAS and was thinking about using WD Red; however now I'm starting to reconsider.

Thanks!

 

[Chuckleb]

Regarding the red drives, we have had great luck with the 3TB units. Haven't used the black line much though.

 

[andrewbedia]

I've used many black drives. 4x2TB WD2002FAEX were used in a raid 6 with a variety of other WD RED, Seagate 7200.14, and Toshiba post-hitachi drives. 2x1TB used in a RAID5 with a 7200.12 Seagate. None of them have EVER died on me.

 

[Lost-Benji]

I don't think there is anything to go on here, 19 months apart to me would be a little low on luck but otherwise OK run. We don't know what you are doing with the drives and maybe you are giving them a easy go or flogging them silly with torrents.

The point I am trying to make is there are plenty of these threads everywhere and they all boil down to either personal preferences or referrals to some other forum. The best is when everyone makes a mess in their pants over bigger players like google and their findings that even for their size, be questionable in their findings.

WD blacks are pretty good drives, RED's, not my favorites by far, Seagates for me personally.

 

[NotMine999]

I am using Blacks and Reds. Both are reliable...assuming they pass my own testing after being shipped. Sometimes shipping can induce problems into drives. Most reviews on Newegg point to HDD with issues most likely due to shipping and/or bad packing by Newegg.

All of my RAID array systems run on very good quality UPS systems (Eaton E5115 units in my case). You would be surprised how flaky AC power can be. Just because you don't see the lights blink (and the newer LED and mini-flourescent lamps really don't flicker like old incandescent types) doesn't mean the AC line voltage hasn't dipped or spiked due to some other load or outside disturbance. My own UPS monitors show all sorts of AC input line voltage variation; phase and frequency are usually very stable. While AC input voltage changes shouldn't affect a PC power supply, from my own experience they can and they do. The "cheeper" PC power supplies tend to have fair to poor AC input filters (saves them money). Also, using a good quality PC power supply is very important as some "cheepo" units have poor DC line stability especially "under load". Some of the best PC power supplies actually have very decent DC output regulation even under heavy loads. The older PC Power and Cooling power supplies (I have a few before-OCZ units) where legendary for their rock solid DC output regulation under the heaviest of loads.

Another thing to consider is how "physically stable" is the PC installation where these troublesome drives exist? If they live inside a PC case under a desk and are subject to occasional "nudges" by your feet or knees, then "Yes, that can mess up ANY HDD". My own RAID array systems live in very stable racks (yes, at home), away from pets and people (a room to themselves...with a door that I can lock). I have a few Blacks with thousands of hours of operating life and still chugging away in a RAID array. One of my oldest RAID arrays has WDC 2TB Blacks with almost 9000 hours of operating life. My oldest 3TB Reds have a few thousand hours also, and also with very good reliability.

 

[Jeggs101]

we were never able to prove it but once had two 24 bay storage servers that were about a year old. Fairly regularly we would see pairs die but in different chassis. Not the exact same time but same week they would both have a drive fail. Uptime was over 270 days when we yanked power and put an APC unit in. No more failures for 9 months.