On Tue, Nov 13, 2001 at 12:11:46PM -0800, Foo Lim wrote: > Ok, WD HDs suck!! A few weeks ago, I complained about a clicking Western > Digital HD, which was replaced by WD. I put it in a new machine with low > usage, and the new one is freaking out also! It hasn't even been used for > more than a few weeks! I do have it on 24/7, but it should be able to > handle it. My advice: skip WD.
I'd like to point a few things out... Back in the good olde days .... [oops] Whenever the hard drive industry moves to a new technology, the early adopters take a beating with many failures. the 1.6gig/platter step hit WD really hard a few years ago. Remeber all those 3, 4.5, 6 gig drive failures? This is common... the 5gig drive size from Maxtor was a lemon too. Those drives lost their defect list, essentally adding "new" sectors in the middle of your data. A real bitch to recover from. Remember when Segate started making 7200 "cheeta" drives, and they were failing left and right? Many of those problems where heat related. All of those problems where growing pains from new technologies. The entire industry had them, it just struck the early producing vendors harder. That said, I continue to recommend WD for IDE, and Segate for SCSI. Yes, industry wide there are problems whenever new technology comes out for 3 to 6 months, and it usually hits only one of the major vendors. When that's happening, you'll hear all sorts of "I'll never buy X again". Give it a year or two and someone else will be in the dog house. My motto is buy from a vendor you like who has a 3 to 5 year warantee. By two drives, and keep a backup. Be prepared for a problem or two every now and then. I have personally had waranteed WD, Segate, and Maxtor drives. I just bought two WD 80gig drives. One failed within 24 hours. The other is flawless. (these came from Fry's, so make sure you've got that firmly planted in your mind before jumping to conclusions) I know that WD will replace that drive, and will cross ship a new one to me with 48 hours. PS You may have a heat problem... if the drive is a 7200rpm and is "warm" (not toasty, not 'hot') to the touch, that's often times too hot. -- Ted Deppner http://www.psyber.com/~ted/
