Western Digital Warning

[sommersby]

Well, chalk it up to learnig the hard way. After reading about different hard drives, tech spec's, reviews, etc. I was looking to buy at least an 80 gig to replace the 30 gig slave I was using. I had two WD 30 gig drives, I wanted to stay with WD because I was keeping my WD master drive and had heard over the years that you should not mix brands of drives, although I had heard that this was not as critical as it use to be.

Well, after visiting the western Digital web site's forum and hearing allot of complaints about failures with the newer high density hard drives, namly the 80, 100 and 120 gig I went ahead and got one anyway, it worked well for 3 days, then I got my first write error, then they got more frequent, then on day 5 I gat a major write error and the drive disappeared from my computer, I uninstalled and let windows find it again, it worked sporadically for the next 2 days, twice I had to uninstall and reinstall, Luckely I was able to get the data off of it and move the rest to my other drive, I returned it and got the seagate instead and so far it is living well with the WD master drive.

So this is a warning to those thinking of getting one of the new big drives, stay away from the WD's, go with IBM's GXE, or the seagate baracuda IV, or even the maxtor, all have much better reviews than the western digital, from what I read if you have a wd and it makes it through the first month it will probubly be ok. To bad, I have always used WD's with not one failure till now, but they have lost my confidence untill they gwt the bugs worked out on their new drives.

[zorinsmarket]

I don't know what forums your reading, but I've had 2 WD 80gigs since they first came out and they have worked flawlessly, i also have a 15gig that I'm using for the main drive, and have had no problems with that one either.
From my many years of experience with building computers most of the failures have come from the Maxtor hdds, I have a 20 and a 80 gigs that are now nice doors stops and correct me if im wrong, but I thought Seagate made WD hdds?

[sommersby]

Like I said I have been putting computers together since the ti-99 came out and have always liked WD drives. here is link, read for yourself. I am sure the failure rate is probubly within their limit, and their are people like you who have had no problems with the new WD's. This is my first failure in over 20 years of putting computers together, but even the salesperson tried and talked me out of it last week, she said they have more of the WD's returned than any other of the new large drives.
http://websupport.wdc.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=5&whichpage=5&ARCHIVE=

Maybe it was coincedence, rading these complaints and then experienceing one. And I will also say I would of tried another WD if the vender was not out of stock. Like I said, my first bad experience with WD. But so far, glad I choose the seagate as it is a 1 1/2 hour drive to take it back....lol

[sommersby]

One other point, this does not apply to their 40 gig and lower drives, only their drives that use the new 40 gig platters.

[kitty]

While I have had WD & maxtor drives fail after use I have never had an IBM drive go down. Small sampling but it's stuck in my mind.

[zorinsmarket]

Ok np bro, guess I got lucky for the time being, but like everything eventually it must brake, thats for the forum site, good info, ill probably buy a Seagate for my next hdd, peace.

[sommersby]

IBM's are great, according to reviews, the only drive they had some problems with was the 75 gxe's but the new 60 gxe's got drive of the year last year, I would of tried one but it was about $40 more.

[KingJohn]

I have a 20G and a 40G IBM, very very good

http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/prod/ds60gxpdata.htm

Very quite, and very fast

[gimp]

I bought one of the 100GB WD when they came out never had a problem with the same for a Maxtor 45GB had for 2 yrs. never a problem.

It's like everything else there are lemons out there in everything that is made!!!!!!!!!