WD 120GB Problems

[Miguel A. Gonzalez]

I am posting this because a lot of other people must be having the
same problem with these drives. I must have purchased over 10-12
different of these drives over the past year or so and it seems that
the failure rate is something unsusual (4 bad drives over the past
year), in different computers, different OS's, etc and they all seem
to have the same problem which is a clicking sound and they no longer
work.. Seems like stuck head in the platter or something..


Has anybody else been experiencing this problems? or could I just have
gotten a bad batch?

Thank in advance
Mike

 

[-Alby Hewlet]

I put one in my son's computer last September, and moved it to his new
computer in February. No problems in either system.

I put one in my system last week. OK so far.

 

[BP]

I am posting this because a lot of other people must be having the
same problem with these drives. I must have purchased over 10-12
different of these drives over the past year or so and it seems that
the failure rate is something unsusual (4 bad drives over the past
year), in different computers, different OS's, etc and they all seem
to have the same problem which is a clicking sound and they no longer
work.. Seems like stuck head in the platter or something..


Has anybody else been experiencing this problems? or could I just have
gotten a bad batch?

Thank in advance
Mike

No problems here. 3 months old. Retail box.

 

[Bob Troll]

What's the full model number of that drive? I'm curious because I only buy
drives with 2 platters. A lot of drives have 3 which to me means more moving
parts and hence more chances to mess up. I avoid them.

I have a pair of WD 120gb SE SATA drives running in a Abit Nf7 v2.0 machine.
They run 24/7/365 and so far have been flawless for 6 months. In a Gigabyte
GA-7VAX machine here is a WD 80gb SE IDE drive paired with a WD 40gb IDE
drive that runs 24/7/365. In yet another Abit NF7S v2.0 there is a WD 160gb
SE SATA paired with a WD 250gb SE IDE drive that also runs 24/7/365. One
more machine has a WD 80gb SE IDE drive that is not running at this
time(although it could). These are all 7200 rpm drives.

All of these drives will have a tendancy to run hot. I overcame that by
buying cases that had an area for mounting hard drives that was right behind
the front case fan. A 80mm or a slow 120mm will move enough air across the
drives to keep them barely warm to the touch. They are about as warm as my
dog's belly.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I read about a hard drive failure
is "I wonder how hot they were running"?

Drives that are slung in underneath floppy drives in cases are just asking
for trouble in my opinion. The heat has nowhere to go, so the drives gets
hotter and hotter. Look up the temperature operating specs on that drive and
you may be surprised at how relatively low the maximum operating temp is.
41f -131f or 5c to 55c if I recall correctly.

I always set my options for power saving on the drives to NEVER let them go
to sleep. Most hard drives are rated for about 50,000 power cycles. Yep
that's a lot but the powering up and down isn't the best for any electronic
part in any case.

How hot was this drive getting?

Regards, Bob "hopelessly insane machine warrior" Troll

 

[Miguel A. Gonzalez]

No problems here. 3 months old. Retail box.

Well mine ran for about 14 months.. Just enough to be over the
warranty period since they were OEM drives. I wonder if they were
like the old WD 8.xGB drives as were there were a few bad batches of
them as well.

 

[Miguel A. Gonzalez]

What's the full model number of that drive? I'm curious because I only buy
drives with 2 platters. A lot of drives have 3 which to me means more moving
parts and hence more chances to mess up. I avoid them.

I have a pair of WD 120gb SE SATA drives running in a Abit Nf7 v2.0 machine.
They run 24/7/365 and so far have been flawless for 6 months. In a Gigabyte
GA-7VAX machine here is a WD 80gb SE IDE drive paired with a WD 40gb IDE
drive that runs 24/7/365. In yet another Abit NF7S v2.0 there is a WD 160gb
SE SATA paired with a WD 250gb SE IDE drive that also runs 24/7/365. One
more machine has a WD 80gb SE IDE drive that is not running at this
time(although it could). These are all 7200 rpm drives.

All of these drives will have a tendancy to run hot. I overcame that by
buying cases that had an area for mounting hard drives that was right behind
the front case fan. A 80mm or a slow 120mm will move enough air across the
drives to keep them barely warm to the touch. They are about as warm as my
dog's belly.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I read about a hard drive failure
is "I wonder how hot they were running"?

Drives that are slung in underneath floppy drives in cases are just asking
for trouble in my opinion. The heat has nowhere to go, so the drives gets
hotter and hotter. Look up the temperature operating specs on that drive and
you may be surprised at how relatively low the maximum operating temp is.
41f -131f or 5c to 55c if I recall correctly.

I always set my options for power saving on the drives to NEVER let them go
to sleep. Most hard drives are rated for about 50,000 power cycles. Yep
that's a lot but the powering up and down isn't the best for any electronic
part in any case.

How hot was this drive getting?

Regards, Bob "hopelessly insane machine warrior" Troll

The model is WD1200BB it's the 2MB version. I dont know how many
platters they have as I've not look at the specs in the website but I
believe they are only 2 platters.

These drives also ran 24/7/365 and other than probably a few routing
maintenance on the PCs/Servers they never got turned off. As for
running hot I had it on 4 different types of cases and pretty much all
well ventilated. The last two that failed were on 4U servers with
like 4 fans inside them and the big fan in front of the case to
circulate the air so I dont think overheating was a problem.
Specially since the first 120Gb that failed was inside my computer
and I never have the side panels on it (I am sure you know how that
goes)..

I am hoping that i just had a bad batch as I have a bunch of 40
thought 80GB drives installed in the POS machines I sell and never had
a problem, and I was just now going to start offering the 120GB (Which
is an overkill for a POS I know) in the new orders but I may have to
hold back and stay with the 80GB to be safer.

I just ordered myself today 4 WD250JD (Serial ATA) to put on my new
Raid Server with the 3Ware 8056-12 card and I cant wait until they
arrive on friday. They should be sweet. How do you like your 250
Serial ATA drive compared to the regular 2MB cache ones?

WOW. Thanks for pointing out the temperature specs to me, i never
knew it was that little. I think you can probably get easily 130F
inside of a PC...

FROM WesternDigitals website:

Operating (English) 41° F to 131° F
Non-operating (English) -40° F to 149° F

 

[Bob Troll]

Hi Miguel

Your drive is a 3 platter job as I suspected. I do not like them and always
go for the SE drives which in most cases are 2 platter.

My 250 is a straight IDE drive which has a 160 SATA for a partner(non-raid
of course). I'm happy with all my drives. I saw my buddy this evening and he
told me he just had yet another Maxtor bite the dust today. Egads...

I don't know where you are buying your drives but you might want to take a
look at Newegg.com to save some hard earned cash unless you're filthy rich.
The WD OEM SE drives come with a 3 year warranty and retail for the same
drive at Best Buy for the same drive gives a one year. I think the 80gb WD
SE drive is around $67 shipped which is not bad at all. I have spent
thousands with newegg and they have always been prompt and taken care of any
problems very painlessly. I recommend them highly. You might wonder what
kind of problems I had with them. One time I got a Enermax power supply and
it was DOA. They had a new one to me in about 3 days after I sent the dead
one back. The other problem was an external HD case that I just got late
last Thursday. The cable package was missing. I sent an email telling them
about that and the cables arrived today (Wednesday). I got no problem with
them taking care of me.

Regards, Bob Troll

 

[Vlad Depovic]

I am posting this because a lot of other people must be having the
same problem with these drives. I must have purchased over 10-12
different of these drives over the past year or so and it seems that
the failure rate is something unsusual (4 bad drives over the past
year), in different computers, different OS's, etc and they all seem
to have the same problem which is a clicking sound and they no longer
work.. Seems like stuck head in the platter or something..

Yeah, I've got two of those 120 gig clunkers. The clanking noise they make
is unbelievably load but they both still work. For now. I'm gonna replace
'em both pdq.


This is a first for me. Been buying WD drives just about forever and never
had one break. I'd always sold the machine they were in or just retired
the drives when they got several years old. I hope WD's not going the way
of US automakers......