Inferior drives?

[chrisv]

Thanks, Arno. This seems to be most people's opinion.

Not mine. All I buy (more than a dozen a year) is WD. They work well
for me...

 

[Arno Wagner]

Andrew J. Rozsa wrote:

Not mine. All I buy (more than a dozen a year) is WD. They work well
for me...

It seems some pople are very happy with WD, and some have
serious problems. Together with the fact that thir drives have
these RAID troubles, I would say that WD probably hase some
specific circumstances under which they are unreliable,
similar to the temperature problem Maxtor has.

What environments are you using the drives in and what
rpm/size combinations are you buying?

Arno

 

[Fabien LE LEZ]

It seems some pople are very happy with WD

I am. The only recent disks I had problems with were Maxtor and
Seagate.
I have two PATA 7200 rpm (one 300-GB and one 320-GB) that work
perfectly (24/7).

 

[Fabien LE LEZ]

I have two PATA 7200 rpm (one 300-GB and one 320-GB) that work
perfectly (24/7).

Maybe not clear enough... I was talking about Western Digital here.

 

[chrisv]

It seems some pople are very happy with WD, and some have
serious problems. Together with the fact that thir drives have
these RAID troubles, I would say that WD probably hase some
specific circumstances under which they are unreliable,
similar to the temperature problem Maxtor has.

What environments are you using the drives in and what
rpm/size combinations are you buying?

We use the PC's to test our product. Some of the PC's are subjected
to frequent power-cycling, so it's a pretty tough environment in some
aspects. As I generally only need a few GB of HD space, I just buy
what's cheap - 80GB, these days...

 

[Joe S]

Experience, intuition, filtering out information from FUD in
this newsgroup.

My present take:

Maxtor: Reliable only when cooled well. Failure usualy gradual.
(personal experience, I have about 40 running for >3 years
now)
WD: Has problems. High speed, low reliability. Can fail
catastrophically. Samsung: Very quiet, overall seem to be reliable
Seagate: Not quite as quiet, seem to be reliable except for some
specific models (info from Odie, see his postings).
Hitachi: Seem reliable for the newer models. Don't know about
noise.

Arno

WD seems to come out of reviews very well. ISTR that StorageReview
generally like them.

I see WD are often noisier (and I recall they were later than most
rivals in using with fluid bearing) but their performance and
reliability is said to be generally good.

Or so I though!

I recall WD use slightly more dated technology than their rivals and
presumably they make it work hard.

Seems that you and others don't much like WD drives.

 

[Arno Wagner]

WD seems to come out of reviews very well. ISTR that StorageReview
generally like them.

Which mesn not a lot, sincce these reviews do not include
any reliability data.

I see WD are often noisier (and I recall they were later than most
rivals in using with fluid bearing) but their performance and
reliability is said to be generally good.

Well, as I said in another posting, WD seems to be inconsistent
in reliability. Some people have no problems (but then I have
not had significant problems with Maxtor, considering the
number of Maxtors I have running), others have had serious
problems. This indicates to me that generally WD is less rliable
tha, say, Seagate.

Then there is the whole issue with their ''RAID'' drives,
which strongly indicates a reliability problem on their side.

Or so I though!

I recall WD use slightly more dated technology than their rivals and
presumably they make it work hard.

Seems that you and others don't much like WD drives.

It is not as simple as that...

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-23,GGLG:en&q=define:+FUD

Yeah, sounds about right for you, babblebot.

Which mesn not a lot, sincce these reviews do not include
any reliability data.


Well, as I said in another posting, WD seems to be inconsistent
in reliability.

So are they all. Even Seagate.

Some people have no problems (but then I have not had significant problems with
Maxtor, considering the number of Maxtors I have running), others have had serious
problems.

Which happens (has happened) with all mainstream drive makers.

This indicates to me that generally WD is less rliable tha, say, Seagate.

Even your pal-pal Odoriferous keeps away from certain Seagate models.

Then there is the whole issue with their ''RAID'' drives,

which strongly indicates a reliability problem on their side.

There is no reliability problem on their side.
WD drives have unusually long retry recovery times that is unsuitable for
RAID use, mostly because the RAID controllers are still ancient technology
-firmware wise- and can't be adjusted to the WDs.
So WD have drives specifically for RAID use on those types of controllers.

It is not as simple as that...

Yes it is.
Babblebot puts people that disagree with him in his kill
file and keeps playing his broken record over and over.