So, I can understand your frustration but, 4 discs out of how many thousands they make every day? That's not that conclusive. That said, iirc the reviews about a year ago did say that this was a very consumer drive. I don't remember hearing them break but...
On Sep 3, 2011 4:30 PM, "Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton" <luke.leighton@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> just a word of warning: on absolutely no account, not for any reason,
> should you buy WD "Green" drives.
>
> i've just spent a hair-raising 6 weeks discovering that these drives,
> when pushed above a mere 40 Centigrade, become so unstable that they
> can actually become completely unresponsive, shut down, and leave the
> linux kernel in a completely unstable state, especially if they are
> part of a RAID1 mirror.
>
> it merely takes something such as .... ooo, copying the data? or...
> shock, horror, writing a file, to raise the temperatures enough to
> cause them to become unstable. and as for actually doing a RAID check
> or a RAID1 re-join - well, you know how normally the mdadm mismatch
> count is supposed to be zero? well, by the time the re-build is
> complete, the mismatch count is up to 170,000.
>
> now, you may be thinking "surely, that was just unlucky with two
> drives, right?" wrong - the total number of drives used for this RAID1
> mirror was *four* drives [cf: earlier very helpful discussion
> involving a script which someone published - thanks! - that detected
> partly-complete RAID mirrors]
>
> so, whilst most people are finding that these drives are "great", the
> reality is that they are only "fantastic" if you don't actually use
> them. the moment you try to do a backup of them (for example if
> they're failing) then it is too late: you will be absolutely
> guaranteed to have lost all the data.
>
> according to the mdadm mismatch count as a standard heuristic /
> guideline to determine whether drives should be replaced, strictly
> speaking, these drives are already end-of-life. but being sold as
> new.
>
> now, apparently, what Western Digital do is they test new drives
> thoroughly, and if they pass with flying colours, they are labelled
> "black" and sold for more money. if they fail, then they're
> "re-programmed" to run a bit slower, thus making less noise, use less
> power, and can therefore justify being sold with a "green" label.
>
Source?
> unfortunately what that means is that Western Digital are knowingly
> selling faulty drives, *knowingly* trying to pass off
> unfit-for-purpose drives as "new".
>
BTW, Intel and AMD (and probably every other chip maker) does the same. Why not do it with discs.
> if you have purchased WD "Elements" or any other "Green" Drives, you
> should perform a SLOW backup, ensuring that the temperature never goes
> above 38C in the process, and return them as "unfit for purpose" to
> wherever you bought them from.
>
> by contrast, hitachi's 1.5tb drives which were £70 each off of ebuyer
> (instead of £55 for the WD Elements including the external USB case)
> run consistently at a full FOUR degrees centigrade lower temperature,
> even when the WD Green Drive was removed from its USB case and placed
> into the exact same server in which the hitachi drive was present.
>
I'm sure I can find someone saying the exact opposite about WD vs Hitachi if you look. It just depends on how many discs you run into.
> four identical WD Elements drives - all of them completely unfit for
> purpose. that's not an accident, and i am not the only person who has
> experienced difficulties with these drives (different batch, different
> supplier).
BTW I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying you're not right :) If you had 10+ desktops with discs you kept needing to rma, I might see your point. But just 4 of the cheapest discs out there (unknown fs, no bench / profile data, kernel version, etc) and minimal troubleshooting data is very inconclusive to me.
So come again. Do not buy, why?