3 Dead 1TB WD Black

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dizolit

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
222
In the past year, I've had 3 WD Black 1TBs die. There would be signs of it reaching the point of failure: movies would stop working at certain points, read/write would go down to 1.7ish MB/s when transferring between hdds, sometimes the hard drive would disappear.

I also have an Intel G2 80gb SSD, WD Blue 256gb SSD, WD Green 2TB, and Hitachi 2TB and they've all been fine for the last 18 months.

Could there be something wrong with the SATA connection on my board? Or am I just on a bad luck streak? Also, I looked up how much the drive costs now on Amazon - holy crap.

I did some googling and found this: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/275524-32-important-data-recovery-broken-hard-drive . Is the WD Black 1TB just a bad line of drives? I also found this thread which hinted that AHCI (which I am using) may be affecting it http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop/Problem-with-my-WD-Caviar-Black-1tb/td-p/93114 .
 
I've never heard of AHCI effecting HD longevity but since mechanical drives get little/no benefit from it there's no reason to use it.

If you were using these drives in external cases with no active cooling, heat could be a factor (mine ran really hot) but other than that.....I'm outta ideas.

Maybe the WD Gods just don't like you. :D

Good Luck!
 
Or am I just on a bad luck streak?
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I would say this or you have a power supply problem. Did you look at the SMART with a program like CrystalDiskInfo to try to determine the reason for death?

Also, I looked up how much the drive costs now on Amazon - holy crap.
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Aren't your drives still under warranty?
 
Yeah I dunno at number 3 I'd be looking at operating conditions for sure. Is it sandwiched tight with no real air flow around it? They're not smoking hot drives, but for a 7200RPM drive they get pretty toasty. And have a look at your power situation as mentioned above.
 
Yes, it is still under warranty and yes, WD RMA is great. However, after having already gone through 2 RMAs with a 3rd one pending, I'm not sure how I feel about putting anything on a new 1TB Black.

The 1TB is under my SSDs and above the WD Green. I have literally no space to put it anywhere else as all the cages are full, but I wouldn't imagine heat is an issue as it is right in front of a 230mm fan with a decent gap between drives.

Maybe 4th time is the charm?
 
drescherjm said:
I would say this or you have a power supply problem. Did you look at the SMART with a program like CrystalDiskInfo to try to determine the reason for death?



Aren't your drives still under warranty?
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I've used the WD Diagnostic Tool before and it said that there were bad sectors (when I had to RMA the 2nd time). The first time, I didn't look into it. I will look into CrystalDiskInfo and find some info on this most recent one that I will have to RMA.
 
The 1TB is under my SSDs and above the WD Green. I have literally no space to put it anywhere else as all the cages are full, but I wouldn't imagine heat is an issue as it is right in front of a 230mm fan with a decent gap between drives.
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In that case I'd probably discount the heat theory but just for shits and giggles I'd look at the temps for that drive anyway. Lotsa little programs do that.

RMAs are usually refurbed drives so you may want to do a long test on the next one before you start using it.

Good Luck.
 
I feel bad man... My GF has a 1tb black. No problem. I have 2 x 2tb fass in my server. Good. And a bnib 2 TB faex waiting.... Idk man.
 
I don't think I've ever heard of any consistent reports of widespread failures on Blacks. I've had a couple, a 1TB for several years now, and a 2TB I got earlier in the year, both have been trouble free.
 
If you have the drive in an area of the case where other HDDs or heated components are at, overheating will certainly cause a drive to die.

Though WD's failure rate has been on the increase lately, this does seem like something is setup abnormally, causing the drives to die over and over.

OP, how did you have the drive situated in your case?
 
The blacks do run hot, but their complaint ratio at newegg seem on par with every other mechanical drive. Probably a combination of heat and bad luck. Can't believe how expensive they are now, glad I jumped on the 1.5 when it was around $100.
 
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