Re: DO NOT BUY Western Digital "Green" Drives (also present in WD "Elements" external USB cases)
On 9/3/2011 3:14 PM, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
just a word of warning: on absolutely no account, not for any reason,
should you buy WD "Green" drives.
I've been been on my soap box many times WRT WD Green drives, but for
different reasons that you state here.
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.
40 Celsius is 104F, only 5.4F above normal human body temperature. I
find this claim difficult to believe. The published operating
temperature specs for the Green series of drives is 0C - 60C, or 32F -
140F. I would guess that whatever method/device you're using to measure
temperature is reading much lower than actual temp, and that your drives
are actually operating above 60F. This is assuming your problems are
caused by high temperatures, and not something else. Unless you're
exceeding 60C, the cause of your problems lay elsewhere.
so, whilst most people are finding that these drives are "great", the
Only those who align their partitions correctly to avoid the dreaded RMW
problem, or those whose performance needs are so meager that they don't
realize they suffer the RMW problem.
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.
"Bin sorting", which is what you're describing, is performed by IC
manufacturers. There is no such thing as bin sorting of mechanical
drives. Remove this notion from your grey matter as the practice simply
doesn't exist.
unfortunately what that means is that Western Digital are knowingly
selling faulty drives, *knowingly* trying to pass off
unfit-for-purpose drives as "new".
See above. This is factually incorrect.
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.
They're not "unfit for purpose" in this case, but simply defective.
Again, the specs state an upper operating temperature of 60C. If they
fail due to thermal issues at a temp lower than 60C, they drives are
simply defective.
four identical WD Elements drives - all of them completely unfit for
purpose. that's not an accident, ...
/sarcasm on
No, no accident at all. WD is intentionally trying to ruin their own
reputation by selling an entire line of drives that suck. Their
shareholders asked them to lose a ton of money, and the employees just
decided one day they don't want bonuses.
/sarcasm off
Bad products hit the market. You simply have to deal with it. I just
returned a Corsair SSD that died after 4 months. That was my boot drive
in my main workstation and I don't have a spare. I bet I'm far more
peeved than you since I can't even use that machine until the
replacement arrives, and you don't see me blasting Corsair. Not yet
anyway, we'll see how they handle the RMA...
--
Stan
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