Two Brand New WD Black HDD Failures

[Aarondeep]

Sounds like those drives had a very rough transit on the way to you.
How did the egg pack them ? If they were on top of each other, then I am not surprised.
Could have also been damaged by the egg packers dropping them or something along those lines.

The above poster provides the best reasoning as to why your drives are defective. I stopped purchasing OEM HDD's from newegg because of this reason. They do not adequately package the drives. I have had 6 DOA's from newegg on 4 separate orders. I decided I would only buy retail packaged drives or get the drives from somewhere else.

 

[Andle Riddum]

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[thelastjuju]

The above poster provides the best reasoning as to why your drives are defective. I stopped purchasing OEM HDD's from newegg because of this reason. They do not adequately package the drives. I have had 6 DOA's from newegg on 4 separate orders. I decided I would only buy retail packaged drives or get the drives from somewhere else.

I really don't know about that..

I received a used WD Black off ebay, packaged with NOTHING.. no padding, no static wrap.. just a cardboard box barely bigger than the drive itself, and it made it half way across the country. I was about to panic when I first opened it, but it formatted perfectly and has been working fine for months now..

Its very odd how its either one of two things: Seems like people either NEVER receive any bad drives from newegg, or you receive MULTIPLE bad drives from them. :hmm:

 

[exdeath]

Lol typical HDD for ya. SSD needs to hurry up and catch price/density of HDD so that dinosaur can just die in peace.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

WD Blacks are about the most reliable drive available, so definitely strange you got two bad.

I haven't read any recent lab reviews, but the SATA-II Blacks were indeed darn reliable.

I bought several -- SATA II and then SATA-III. I think probably the "perpendicular" technology has pervaded the entire market after Hitachi introduced it. Correct me on that, though.

I have a friend on the east coast -- retired electronics geek. He reiterated what I'd thought about this for a while: stick with the 500 GB drives. He mentioned "single-platter" high-capacity drives (>= 1TB) as having a higher failure rate.

 

[ky54]

I am very leery of the new post-flood drives. I'm reading all over the net about WD failures and they aren't all from newegg. I can't even guess how many OEM HDD's I've ordered from newegg and I've never had a problem although I'm certainly not saying that they were either damaged in the packing stage or in transit. I used to work for DHL and I've seen all manner of damaged crap coming from the packing houses.

 

[Anarchist420]

I haven't read any recent lab reviews, but the SATA-II Blacks were indeed darn reliable.

stick with the 500 GB drives. He mentioned "single-platter" high-capacity drives (>= 1TB) as having a higher failure rate.

What about the 640GB blacks? I installed one of those for my parents PC (it was a pre-flood HDD) and it failed after like a month, but I replaced it with a 500GB Black and that's worked fine. I've had a 500GB black of my own for my PC for a long time and was thinking about getting another one (which would be my 3rd HDD), but I want the price to come down.

I am very leery of the new post-flood drives. I'm reading all over the net about WD failures and they aren't all from newegg

That scares me, because the WD Black 500GB was the best drive ever made, at least for the pre-flood price of like $50. Thanks for confirming what the problem was though

 

[notposting]

I just received 2 more WD 2TB Greens from Newegg, they were packed:

large box containing:
2 smaller boxes each containing:
the plastic inserts holding the drives in place within the smaller boxes.

So I was happy...they are both working...yeah the NAS sounds suspicious. 2 previously known good drives magically failing as soon as they touch it? 2 new drives both supposedly DOA? Hmmmm...

 

[RhoXS]

There is no consistency how Newegg ships drives. Over the past two weeks I have had four total drive shipments (three from Newegg and one from WD) and all have had different packaging.

The first shipment from Newegg included the original two new black drives I ordered. Each drive (in its factory sealed antistatic bag) was wrapped in bubble wrap and then placed in a small (7.5" X 6.5" X 3") but sturdy cardboard box sized just big enough to hold a drive and some bubble wrap. Both boxes were then placed in a relatively large cardboard box and packed with Styrofoam peanuts. Both new drives were defective on delivery.

The second shipment from Newegg was a single drive that was the first black drive replacement. The drive was in an identical box as used in the first shipment but instead of bubble wrap they used two molded plastic supports to hold the ends of the drive and help protect it from shock. It is obvious to me the box and plastic supports (not bubble wrap) were designed and sized specifically as a system to ship hard drives. In this shipment the box itself was the shipping container. It was not packed inside a larger box. This drive tested sat on arrival using the WD Lifeguard extended test.

The third shipment from Newegg was the second black drive replacement. This drive was also in an identical box and supported by the molded plastic supports. However, this box was shipped inside a larger shipping box packed with crumpled brown wrapping paper. This drive tested sat on arrival using the WD Lifeguard extended test.

The fourth shipment was the first blue drive warranty replacement from Western Digital (not Newegg). WD had the drive in an identical box with identical plastic supports but the box was also the shipping box and was not packed inside a larger box. This drive tested sat on arrival using the WD Lifeguard extended test.

I am expecting one more drive; the second blue warranty replacement from WD. It will be interesting to see if WD is consistent in how they ship these drives.

It appears to me Newegg has not established a standard for shipping HDDs. I would think a standard would be essential to minimize shipping related failures. I am also now very surprised and appalled the original shipment used bubble wrap instead of the plastic supports that are obviously intended to be used. This surprises me because Newegg does so well in all other respects. Defective new drives represent additional cost to Newegg because they handle replacing them. After 30 days a defective drive becomes a warranty issue and accountability transfers to WD.

 

[KingFatty]

I dunno, if you get 2 drives and put them both in the same computer/server, and they both fail, my first instinct would be to question the installation and/or the computer/server.

I was puzzled why everyone thought to blame Newegg? I would also guess that a hard drive manufacturer packages the hard drive in a shippable package that is robust enough to protect the drive in shipment?

 

[Blain]

I dunno, if you get 2 drives and put them both in the same computer/server, and they both fail, my first instinct would be to question the installation and/or the computer/server.

I was puzzled why everyone thought to blame Newegg?

I didn't. ^_^

 

[BrightCandle]

You have been exceptionally unlucky, but there are good reasons to see the pattern of failures you have:
1) When you buy two identical drives from the same place they often come from the exact same production batch. The collected data shows that drives in the same batch tend to fail at roughly the same time when subjected to similar load patterns.
2) Drives tend to die early or survive a year or more.

There could be something wrong with the NAS but I think its more likely this is either the usual drive early failure/similar batch problem x2 making you quite unlucky or its NewEgg up to their usual tricks of reshipping drives other customers have reported as faulty.

 

[RhoXS]

...
1) When you buy two identical drives from the same place they often come from the exact same production batch.

...

There could be something wrong with the NAS ...

I did indeed suspect a NAS issue. The first two sets of drives I used ended up with all four drives bad so it was hard not to consider this as a possible problem.

While waiting for replacement drives I took two older unused 250 GB drives and tested them using Western Digital Lifeguard extended tests. Both drives tested sat. I then installed them in the DS212 without any problems.

Over the past two days I received both replacement hard drives from Newegg. After both drives tested sat using WD Lifeguard extended tests I installed them in the DS212 without any problems. The DS212 is now up and running with no obvious problem.

This is my theory for explaining four failed drives.

The first two drives I installed in the DS212 were two year old 1 TB WD blue drives that were previously installed in a DLink DNS323 NAS. Although they worked apparently without a problem in the DNS323 they did not work in the DS212 and subsequent testing indicated many bad sectors. The transfer rates associated with the DLink DNS323 are very slow so file/folder transfers of any consequential size could take hours. The DNS323 also has a pathetic tiny token exhaust fan on the back that does not move much air so the drives always ran very warm (hot?). I think it is possible both blue drives were already damaged from their service in the DNS323. The bad sectors, not noticed by the DNS323, immediately became apparent in the DS212 when the parity test commenced.

The two black drives, wrapped in bubble wrap, instead of being supported by the intended plastic molded shipping supports, were probably both damaged during shipment. Interestingly, the new replacement black drives Newegg sent me have the same production date so I think it is reasonable to assume they are from the same manufacturing run.

 

[KingFatty]

Here's an interesting article about fixing failed drives - apparently if you blow a certain diode due to power issues, you can remove that diode? Otherwise, looks like you could swap the circuit board too:

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/133294-raising-the-dead-can-a-regular-person-repair-a-damaged-hard-drive

 

[tweakboy]

Might be from a bad batch. WD is up theree with reliable drives .. 2 of them go is odd. Either you did something very bad,, or the latter which is from a bad batch. thx gl,