I'm looking for a better alternative to the WD Green series of HD's.  In the last 3 months I have had 3x WD 1.5TB Green drives die on me (2x WDEADS, 1x WDEARS), and of those 3x drives two of them were in the last week and neither of them are more than 1 yr old!  I have been using WD drives for years with great success/longevity but maybe that WD quality I have enjoyed for a long time is slipping and their ADV RMA process is terrible compared with other companies like Samsung.  I had an 1TB F1 drive that was almost 3 yrs old die on me last year applied for an RMA on a monday morning, shipped the drive out in the afternoon, and I had a new one on my doorstep by thursday excellent turn around times for Samsung and didn't have to give a credit deposit! As for WD did the same thing applied for an ADV RMA on a sunday evening thinking I would at least get it by friday since I put a deposit down for it and it only shipped out yesterday and both WD and Samsung's warehouses are in the same city here in Canada.  I am not impressed.  So getting to the point what other brands would be a better choice to the WD Green, Samsung F2's or F4's? Hitachi, seagate?

I like the Hitachi CoolSpin drives.  Though now that hitachi has been bought by WD you may want to grab all the Hitachi drives that you can.

Hitachi drives seem to be working very well right now and there are some good deals on them too.

I'm looking for a better alternative to the WD Green series of HD's.  In the last 3 months I have had 3x WD 1.5TB Green drives die on me (2x WDEADS, 1x WDEARS), and of those 3x drives two of them were in the last week and neither of them are more than 1 yr old!  I have been using WD drives for years with great success/longevity but maybe that WD quality I have enjoyed for a long time is slipping and their ADV RMA process is terrible compared with other companies like Samsung.  I had an 1TB F1 drive that was almost 3 yrs old die on me last year applied for an RMA on a monday morning, shipped the drive out in the afternoon, and I had a new one on my doorstep by thursday excellent turn around times for Samsung and didn't have to give a credit deposit! As for WD did the same thing applied for an ADV RMA on a sunday evening thinking I would at least get it by friday since I put a deposit down for it and it only shipped out yesterday and both WD and Samsung's warehouses are in the same city here in Canada.  I am not impressed.  So getting to the point what other brands would be a better choice to the WD Green, Samsung F2's or F4's? Hitachi, seagate?

 

That many drives dying at once points to something else.  Are you using a UPS battery backup?  If so then start thinking about a new PSU.

Or your motherboard...

 

There was recently a user here wondering why all of his drives had high number of UDMA_CRC errors - http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12399.0

 

Think about what you have in common.

 

Also the newer WD HDDs do not like a high temperature above 40 deg C - but they do not provide the SMART attribute for min/max temperature that the others HD vendors do so you can check it out.

That many drives dying at once points to something else.  Are you using a UPS battery backup?  If so then start thinking about a new PSU.

 

No UPS, its a 6 month old Seasonic PSU that I'm using.

Or your motherboard...

 

There was recently a user here wondering why all of his drives had high number of UDMA_CRC errors - http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12399.0

 

Think about what you have in common.

 

Also the newer WD HDDs do not like a high temperature above 40 deg C - but they do not provide the SMART attribute for min/max temperature that the others HD vendors do so you can check it out.

 

My drives are in an Antec 300 that is air cooled very well.  My drives never go above 20 C.

 

How do you check for UDMA_CRC errors?

 

Of the 3 drives that died, 2 made clicking errors and weren't even detected in the BIOS, and the third had write errors/bad sectors.  So I don't think it is my system killing the drives.

That many drives dying at once points to something else.  Are you using a UPS battery backup?  If so then start thinking about a new PSU.

 

No UPS, its a 6 month old Seasonic PSU that I'm using.

 

:o

 

Get a UPS.  Brown outs kill more equipment than black outs and you won't even notice them happening.

That many drives dying at once points to something else.  Are you using a UPS battery backup?  If so then start thinking about a new PSU.

 

No UPS, its a 6 month old Seasonic PSU that I'm using.

 

:o

 

Get a UPS.  Brown outs kill more equipment than black outs and you won't even notice them happening.

 

I don't need a UPS we never get brown outs where I live, and the sudden failure of my HD's has nothing to do with the quality of the electricity coming into my house. Its either poor quality from WD or something else, but not the power because I barelly use my unraid server it doesn't run 24/7 i use maybe a few hours a week to watch stuff or to load more data onto it.

That many drives dying at once points to something else.  Are you using a UPS battery backup?  If so then start thinking about a new PSU.

 

No UPS, its a 6 month old Seasonic PSU that I'm using.

 

:o

 

Get a UPS.  Brown outs kill more equipment than black outs and you won't even notice them happening.

 

I don't need a UPS we never get brown outs where I live, and the sudden failure of my HD's has nothing to do with the quality of the electricity coming into my house. Its either poor quality from WD or something else, but not the power because I barelly use my unraid server it doesn't run 24/7 i use maybe a few hours a week to watch stuff or to load more data onto it.

 

I'm calling this a case of denial.  Drives don't fail like that by themselves.  Something is going on either in the power or the psu.  On the other hand, maybe you are one in a billion and you should buy a lotto ticket right away.

I've got 5 WD Greens in my machine and I'm the only feed off a main transformer in my area. Needless to say I've got several UPS in my house protecting various items and I'll tell you what. $99 is cheap for a UPS verse all the hassle of mailing hard drives and the threat of loosing data.

 

For the record I've had 3 power outages in the last 7years and every once in a while I see a flicker in my lighting. Power is clean, but its only as clean as what hits my power box. Brown outs just happen as well power spikes just happen too, but luckily we have transformers that protect against that. I just spoke with an Electrical Engineer and even he said unless your house is specifically setup to filter out Brown Outs you should expect them because power surges and power drops happen constantly on the line since it is AC

I don't need a UPS we never get brown outs where I live

 

I find this difficult to believe.  How do you know - do you have a line monitor installed?  It might only take one to destroy your equipment.

 

...but not the power because I barelly use my unraid server it doesn't run 24/7...

 

I'm not sure that not running 24/7 protects you against brown outs.

 

What protection do you have on the supply to your server - surge suppressor, AVR ... ?

 

I'm not sure where you are, and what the standards are for power supply - is your equipment earthed/grounded?  How good is that earth connection? Is your incoming supply earthed on the neutral line?

 

In the first house I lived in in Philippines (where there is no earth wire as standard), I installed an earth.  It was then that I discovered the incoming supply was floating - sometimes a few hundred to 1000 volts from ground.  When I had the electric company out to investigate, we discovered that the connection to ground on our nearest pole was loose.  That connection was remade and all was fine after that.

What about This?

 

or This?

Describe your server to help size the ups needed.

How many drives, what kind.  

It might help to know what motherboard but they all take about the same for our purpose.  What CPU?  That can make a diff.  How many fans?  

Graphics card or onboard?

Monitor?  

Describe your server to help size the ups needed.

I think all the information needed is in the signature.

If the drives are running at 20oC then that is very unusual failure rate. I'd be looking at your common or shared components especially since it appears you have also RMA a Samsung drive. Common HDD controller or PSU?

 

Did they all fail with the same/similar issues (including the Sammy?)

Yup everything is in my signature

Yup everything is in my signature

 

What model psu is that: SS-350ES or SS-350ET or something else.

 

The Cyberpower you suggested would be big enough.

I have a Cyberpower 1350 and I use it for 2 computers.

 

I don't know anything about the Opti brand.

 

 

 

What model psu is that: SS-350ES or SS-350ET or something else.

 

The Cyberpower you suggested would be big enough.

I have a Cyberpower 1350 and I use it for 2 computers.

 

I don't know anything about the Opti brand.

 

 

It is the SS-350ET

If the drives are running at 20oC then that is very unusual failure rate. I'd be looking at your common or shared components especially since it appears you have also RMA a Samsung drive. Common HDD controller or PSU?

 

Did they all fail with the same/similar issues (including the Sammy?)

 

No 2x had clicking noises while the other had write errors, and bad sectors

I'd get a UPS. Only way to be sure You don't get power spikes.

 

As for drives, I was reluctant to start using WD Greens after 3 of my 400 and 500GB drives had failed on me shortly after one another (just a couple of months before end of waranty. The 400GB that came back failed again shortly after, but was then out of warranty. I even had a Raptor drive that failed around that rime. In hindsight, I'm not ruling out power spikes could be part of the cause.

 

The WD Greens in my unRAID server, with APC UPS, however have given me no problems. I'm up to 2 1TB and 6 2TB's.

 

If You don't get a UPS, at least get Your self propper surge protector from a brand name (APC comes to mind), one that has an indicator for when it's worn out.

Surge protectors do nothing about brown outs which is what kills most electronics.

Surge protectors do nothing about brown outs which is what kills most electronics.

 

Do You have a source on that info?  I'd genuinely like to know - I'm supposed to know this stuff as I'm a double E, but honestly I don't know myself whether surges or other phenomena are more damaging.

Surge protectors do nothing about brown outs which is what kills most electronics.

 

Do You have a source on that info?  I'd genuinely like to know - I'm supposed to know this stuff as I'm a double E, but honestly I don't know myself whether surges or other phenomena are more damaging.

 

I'm a Mechanical Engineer, which doesn't make me qualified to design electronic things, but I've got some of the basic background and have been a keen electronic hobbyist since the late 70's...  Modern computer power supplies basically work by rapidly "chopping up" the incoming power and then filtering/actively regulating the resulting mess to maintain a constant output voltage at any load within their specs.  A side effect of this is they can produce nice, steady output from a wide range of input voltages.  That's why they no longer need the 120/240V switch on the back.

 

These designs first showed up in something like the Apple I or II and allowed power supply costs to be greatly reduced because you got to eliminate a rather large and expensive transformer and some very large capacitors.  You also got greater efficiency which made cooling easier.

 

So I don't believe brown outs would cause much of a problem, EXCEPT if you are running near the limits of your power supply - in which case the drop in input voltage might cause the power supply's output voltage to sag and under these conditions there might be more ripple in the output voltages which might be an issue for hard drives.

 

On a related note, the output of the modern UPS (unless you get very expensive ones) can be very messy as these put out a stepped approximation of a sine wave, again the modern computer power supply doesn't have a problem with these but older electronics might.

 

Stephen

 

Surge protectors do nothing about brown outs which is what kills most electronics.

 

Do You have a source on that info?  I'd genuinely like to know - I'm supposed to know this stuff as I'm a double E, but honestly I don't know myself whether surges or other phenomena are more damaging.

 

Modern computer power supplies basically work by rapidly "chopping up" the incoming power and then filtering/actively regulating the resulting mess to maintain a constant output voltage at any load within their specs.  A side effect of this is they can produce nice, steady output from a wide range of input voltages.  That's why they no longer need the 120/240V switch on the back.

 

I'm with You that far (I didn't sleep through all of my classes), but still don't really feel convinced that "brown outs is what kills most electronics", and I am wondering if there is a credible source for that type of information.