5 ms·

WD quality control has gone to shit, I won’t touch them. Samsung I’ve had zero issues with. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/sandisk-extreme-ssds-are-wo

WD quality control has gone to shit, I won’t touch them. Samsung I’ve had zero issues with. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/sandisk-extreme-ssds-are-worthless-multiple-lawsuits-against-wd-say/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/sandisk-extreme-ssds...

_mlbt 2y ago
Solid state drives (SSDs) are very different from hard drives (HDs). Western Digital still seems decent when it comes to hard drives at least in some categories... https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-2024/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-...
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  Even if their quality is alright they seem to enjoy lying to their customers. First they "submarined" SMR into their NAS drives[1], then they started shipping 7200rpm drives as "5400rpm class" drives to cover up performance regression (while increasing power draw)[2]. I wouldn't trust any spec WD puts out about their drives. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-disks-are-being-submarined-into-unexpected-channels/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-di... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ikk0rv/psa_multiple_wd_5400rpm_drives_are_actually/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ikk0rv/psa_mul...
  - eqvinox 2y ago
    The key thing with WD is to not buy actual WD drives, but rather the originally HGST/IBM ones ("WUH…" part number). It seems they still haven't assimilated that company purchase on the technical side, and those drives seem pretty good (according to Backblaze stats at least.)
hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
That's for consumer SSDs. I use their IBM->Hitachi->WD Ultrastar enterprise HDD's. HC560 enterprise (20 TB - WUH722020ALE6L4) seem pretty good and use CMR rather than SMR, ePMR, EAMR, or HAMR. I have around 40 14 TB WUH721414ALE6L4 and WUH721414ALE604 that have been trouble-free for years.
- hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
  My suspicion is that they’ve hit some version of an enshittificcation curve where the quality control is no longer a priority relative to a few years ago. I used to like them but their NvME prosumer drives are dog shit.
  - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
    Anecdotal evidence of retail shit. Retail PC gear has always been relatively shitty.
    - hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
      They are literally being sued over this, it exceeds “typical”.
      - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
        I don't doubt it. Eventually, their marketing and their hubris exceeds their engineering until they have their "Boeing" come-to-Jesus moment. I remember when Asus sold unstable motherboards and had essentially no support or concern for fixing them. This was many years ago.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
justinclift 2y ago
Also, don't use WD NVMe drives with ZFS or btrfs: https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/14793 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/14793 Significant numbers of problems reported, and WD support is pretty much telling people it's their own problem for not using Windows. (!)
- userbinator 2y ago
  WTF. Mass storage is mass storage; it shouldn't matter what filesystem is on it (or, as the case may be, whether there is a filesystem at all.) Some use-cases might perform slower than others but outright failure shouldn't hapen.

_mlbt 2y ago

Solid state drives (SSDs) are very different from hard drives (HDs). Western Digital still seems decent when it comes to hard drives at least in some categories... https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-2024/ https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q1-...

AlexandrB 2y ago
Even if their quality is alright they seem to enjoy lying to their customers. First they "submarined" SMR into their NAS drives[1], then they started shipping 7200rpm drives as "5400rpm class" drives to cover up performance regression (while increasing power draw)[2]. I wouldn't trust any spec WD puts out about their drives. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-disks-are-being-submarined-into-unexpected-channels/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/caveat-emptor-smr-di... [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ikk0rv/psa_multiple_wd_5400rpm_drives_are_actually/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ikk0rv/psa_mul...
- eqvinox 2y ago
  The key thing with WD is to not buy actual WD drives, but rather the originally HGST/IBM ones ("WUH…" part number). It seems they still haven't assimilated that company purchase on the technical side, and those drives seem pretty good (according to Backblaze stats at least.)

hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago

That's for consumer SSDs. I use their IBM->Hitachi->WD Ultrastar enterprise HDD's. HC560 enterprise (20 TB - WUH722020ALE6L4) seem pretty good and use CMR rather than SMR, ePMR, EAMR, or HAMR. I have around 40 14 TB WUH721414ALE6L4 and WUH721414ALE604 that have been trouble-free for years.

hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
My suspicion is that they’ve hit some version of an enshittificcation curve where the quality control is no longer a priority relative to a few years ago. I used to like them but their NvME prosumer drives are dog shit.
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
  Anecdotal evidence of retail shit. Retail PC gear has always been relatively shitty.
  - hehdhdjehehegwv 2y ago
    They are literally being sued over this, it exceeds “typical”.
    - hi-v-rocknroll 2y ago
      I don't doubt it. Eventually, their marketing and their hubris exceeds their engineering until they have their "Boeing" come-to-Jesus moment. I remember when Asus sold unstable motherboards and had essentially no support or concern for fixing them. This was many years ago.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

justinclift 2y ago

Also, don't use WD NVMe drives with ZFS or btrfs: https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/14793 https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/14793 Significant numbers of problems reported, and WD support is pretty much telling people it's their own problem for not using Windows. (!)

userbinator 2y ago
WTF. Mass storage is mass storage; it shouldn't matter what filesystem is on it (or, as the case may be, whether there is a filesystem at all.) Some use-cases might perform slower than others but outright failure shouldn't hapen.