Western Digital Harddives

amacachi

I'm about to order an external harddrive but I remember recently that many were advising against a particular brand as they had a high failure rate on early models but can't remember which brand it was. Are WD generally seen as being towards the higher end of reliability? Speed isn't important to me.

coylemj

Yes, WD is among the best disk drives, they are quoted on the NY Stock Exchange (WDC) and their market capitalisation (current stock price X no. of shares in issue) is 8 Billion dollars.

If there was a bad batch of disk drives you can be sure that the retailers would have pulled them from the shelves by now.

Don't listen to any salesperson who tells you scare stories about certain manufacturers, that's like the tyre guys rubbishing the brands they don't sell, it's to stop you shopping around. You won't go wrong with WD.

ironclaw

Nearly every drive I own is WD. Never had a problem. One drive is about 4 years in a DVR, no fails.

EKRIUQ

Western digital give a warranty with their drives i think its 2-3 years just go to their website and key in the serial number and they'll replace the drive it if gives problems.

Voodu Child

but I remember recently that many were advising against a particular brand as they had a high failure rate on early models but can't remember which brand it was.

You are probably thinking of the Seagate 1.5TB drives which had well-publicised problems a few years ago. But every manufacturer has had their problem drives.

There's no real point in trying to predict how reliable a drive is based on brand. Anyway, you say you are buying an external so half the time you don't know what drive is inside until you buy it (manufacturer brands aside obviously).

Just buy the drive that has the performance, features, price and warranty that you want. And make sure you have backups of important data.

amacachi

Thanks all. Have a Seagate here that I was told would be unreliable and it's been dropped and rewritten and dealt with power surges and cut-outs too many times yet is still working. :pac:

marco_polo

coylemj wrote: »

Yes, WD is among the best disk drives, they are quoted on the NY Stock Exchange (WDC) and their market capitalisation (current stock price X no. of shares in issue) is 8 Billion dollars.

If there was a bad batch of disk drives you can be sure that the retailers would have pulled them from the shelves by now.

Don't listen to any salesperson who tells you scare stories about certain manufacturers, that's like the tyre guys rubbishing the brands they don't sell, it's to stop you shopping around. You won't go wrong with WD.

While I mostly agree with you, there do exist bad baches of drives from time to time from most manfacturer.

Mostly of the bad mouthing is done by people who have been unlucky enough to have a couple of drives fail by the same manufacturer, and nothing will convince them that manufacturer is anything but crap. However you can find these people for every single brand from Samsung, WD, Seagate, so if you did heed such warnings you wouldn't buy from anybody.

Luckily enough I haven't had a drive fail on me in years, from a variety of manufacturer. I currently have both samsung and seagate drives in my rig with a 2TB WD caviliar green on the way, so I definately don't discriminate myself.

Maxtor were definately rubbish before seagate took them over though, that is a FACT* :pac:

* Note the capitalisation means that this point cannot be disputed as it is a infallible truth, futher disagreement will result in the word fact being written again in subsequent posts with capitals and a larger font size. Repeat offenses will result in font color change.

Amalgam

Voodu Child wrote: »

You are probably thinking of the Seagate 1.5TB drives which had well-publicised problems a few years ago. But every manufacturer has had their problem drives.

Seagate still had problems recently, not the drives, but the interface between the hard drive and the external case. The electronics inside were getting cooked.

On the two drives I've had fail, each time was the interface board inside the case, the drives, once removed, worked fine.

Never had a problem with WD drives. The same for Toshiba drives. Maxtor are on the same level, but their drives tend to give off a bit more heat, I find.

Overheal

I own many WD drives and havent had one fail on me but I have heard the stories, sure.

You probably wouldnt go wrong OP. Hard Drives fail. It's natural. Its not specific to one brand or make.

stevveyg

sorry to hijack thread op, i was just going to start a new one when i saw this, basically i bought a 1 TB WD hard drive in Sydney in August and yesterday the problem began.
I was sorting out my music folder when its stopped responding, screen froze etc. i went to task manager but nothing happened so i cut the power to the laptop and restarted.
the hard drive was not recognized by laptop when i plugged in usb and the white light was flashing instead of its usual constant light.
Could anyone tell me is my hard drive goosed?

stevveyg

Sofia Square Dude wrote: »

Ive had a few over the years, have two here in front of me. One TB being copied to another. I have never had problems with them.

As for stevie, this could void the warranty but if you open the case up there is a normal SATA connection you could try it in a PC its possible the problem is with the SATA to USB adapter. Do so at your own risk and only if you know what you are doing.

cheers thanks for that, il get someone with a bit more knowledge on it to have a look for me!

tudlytops

stevveyg wrote: »

cheers thanks for that, il get someone with a bit more knowledge on it to have a look for me!

Agree, i have had a few and the only problems I've had with them were the new ones that connect through sata, but it was easily solved.